Political Quotes

“the legislation before the Senate today, the emergency supplemental appropriations bill, was crafted by the appropriate committees in the Congress to predominately provide disaster assistance for the southern California earthquake. Mr. President, during the past few weeks my colleagues and the general public have seen on television and newspapers the terrible devastation caused by the powerful earthquakes. Unfortunately, Mr. President, very few people outside of Virginia are aware of a disaster caused by tornadoes which occurred as part of a major storm system on August 6, 1993. Mr. President, the tornadoes caused extensive damage to public and private property. The jurisdictions affected were: the cities of Colonial Heights, Petersburg, Newport News, Chesapeake, Hampton, Hopewell, and Virginia Beach, and the Counties of Dinwiddie, York, James City, Lancaster, Charles City, Chesterfield, Henrico, Lunenburg, Middlesex, Northampton, Nottoway, and Sussex. I had the opportunity to inspect some of the tornado damage personally, and I can assure you that the destruction left by the tornadoes has had a severe and continuing impact on every affected community. The financial damages continue to be enormous to every community. The hardest hit community was Petersburg, the second most fiscally stressed locality in Virginia. Preliminary estimates completed by the Department of Emergency Services totalled $49.6 million in losses.…”