Kent Conrad: “my State has been hit by a massive disaster over this last weekend. North Dakota has been hit with the strongest storm…”

“my State has been hit by a massive disaster over this last weekend. North Dakota has been hit with the strongest storm in over 50 years. This is a storm of staggering proportions. Mr. President, North Dakota this last weekend got hit by a combination of an ice storm and blizzard that is unprecedented in the last 50 years. In North Dakota, we are used to harsh winters, but, frankly, we have never seen anything quite like this one. This most recent storm not only involved ice, it involved 70-mile-an-hour winds. That combination has knocked down power poles all across the eastern part of our State. As of yesterday, we had 80,000 people still without power in the State of North Dakota, many of them with no power since Saturday morning. The temperatures have been 40 degrees below zero wind chill since the heat went out. Mr. President, we have story after story of people who are huddled in homes around stoves trying to keep warm. My scheduling director, who is from the small town of Warsaw, ND, has talked to her mother, who is over 80 years old. She has had no heat since Saturday. Mr. President, this is a disaster of truly staggering proportions. In this storm, there were whiteout conditions for 10 hours straight--10 hours straight--where the snow was so heavy and the wind so strong, you literally could not see 5 inches in front of your vehicle.”