Paul Tonko: “Thank you, Mr. Garamendi, for leading us in this very important hour of discussion. As I listened to Representative…”

“Thank you, Mr. Garamendi, for leading us in this very important hour of discussion. As I listened to Representative Pallone speak about the disaster in his district and across the map of New Jersey and now into New York City and Long Island and great portions of New York State, it was shades of the not-so-distant past that came to mind. And we're still doing recovery from the storm of August, the flooding of Irene and Lee in August of 2011, which impacted my district severely. There were human lives that were lost, property that was damaged, homes that were swept away into the river. Everything for which people had ever worked taken from them. Drastic situations. So as we do our work here in Washington, we need to make certain that on this House floor there is advocacy for the response to these given situations. Already the price tag is coming forth from the leadership back home. Governor Cuomo, for instance, suggesting the price, the impact has now steadily risen. At first snapshot, you cannot begin to comprehend all of the damage and all of the aspects and dynamics of recovery that will be required. And now we are looking at something like $30 billion that impacts a State in a very severe way, disrupts service and electric power that is disrupted, commerce that's frozen in place, human misery that's incalculable where lives have been impacted forever by the forces of Sandy. So, you know, this is a revisitation, so to speak, as we are still recovering.…”