On the recordJune 17, 2021
Mr. President, June marks the start of the Atlantic hurricane season, and 2021 is on us, but my constituents are still suffering from the storms of 2020. There are a lot of folks in Louisiana who are still hurting. If you were to fly over Lake Charles, LA, you would still see blue tarps on roofs of homes damaged a year ago. I took to the Senate floor last month stressing the need for disaster supplemental while Lake Charles and Baton Rouge at that time were getting hit by heavy rains and severe flooding. At the time, Lake Charles ended up with 8 to 15 inches of rain in less than 12 hours. It is heartbreaking to see them affected once more by a natural disaster. Baton Rouge got more than 13 inches of rain overnight, with 15,000 homes and businesses without power the next morning. All this comes on the heels of Hurricanes Laura and Delta and winter storms which had catastrophic damage to livestock, crops, and structures for Louisiana farmers. For those who need a refresher, 2020 set a record for the most named storms--30 in 1 season and 5 of those named storms hitting Louisiana, which is also a record. Hurricane Laura, a category 4 hurricane, hit Lake Charles, devastated it, and then almost the exact same place that Laura hit, Delta hit--category 2--6 weeks later. It is unprecedented to have one hurricane followed by another. NOAA calculates the damage from Hurricane Laura at about $19 billion and Delta at $2.9 billion.…





