Arlen Specter: “during the course of the past few days, I have been touring Pennsylvania looking at very, very extensive damage from the…”

“during the course of the past few days, I have been touring Pennsylvania looking at very, very extensive damage from the heavy snows and from the flood. Earlier today I came from Harrisburg, where I was present with my colleague, Senator Santorum, looking over the tremendous damage which has been inflicted at several points from the swollen Susquehanna River. It is a very distressing sight. The walk bridge which spans the Susquehanna from Harrisburg over to the island has been destroyed in part. Many houses have been destroyed. My staff director of northern Pennsylvania, Tom Bowman, in Potter County, has several feet of water in his basement. His furnace is ruined. Appliances are ruined. And that is characteristic as well and has been going on over all of the State. On Saturday early, I flew to Pittsburgh, where I met Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge looking at the tremendous devastation and destruction which is present there. At Three Rivers Stadium, at the confluence of the three rivers in Pittsburgh, water was all the way up to the Hilton Hotel and was extraordinarily serious. Later on Saturday, I saw the swollen Susquehanna in Wilkes-Barre, where some 100,000 people had been evacuated, and the flooding had spread through Pennsylvania, and what a very, very serious situation it is. As of this morning, only 6 counties had been declared disaster areas in Pennsylvania, which I found just a little surprising.”