On the recordJanuary 25, 1994
thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Senate today about the southern California earthquake. Many of our colleagues here in the Senate have expressed concern, and I am very grateful. The people of California need us all right now to assist them, and most of them have never asked a thing from their Government. The 6.6-Richter scale earthquake that devastated parts of the Los Angeles region on January 17, impacted an area the size of Cleveland. The President has declared three counties--Los Angeles, Ventura, and Orange Counties--as disaster areas. I know many of you have been following the televised reports on the quake. Many of these moving pictures have focused really on a few scenes: the awful collapse of the Northridge apartment complex that killed 17 people, the crumbled bridges and the crowded shelters. It has been called the Los Angeles earthquake, but that is misleading. In addition to parts of L.A., this quake ripped through the cities of Santa Monica, San Fernando, Santa Clarita, Burbank, Glendale, Fillmore, Simi Valley, and Thousand Oaks as well as parts of Orange and Ventura Counties. Let me present you the larger picture of an entire region that has undergone horrendous havoc: The initial earthquake left 20,000 to 25,000 homeless. To date 57 have died and 7,500 have been injured. The first day there were 70 structure fires. About 25,000 structures have been damaged, 11,000 are uninhabitable.
