Marsha Blackburn: “as I begin my remarks today, I express my thanks to my colleagues here in this Chamber and, certainly, all across…”

“as I begin my remarks today, I express my thanks to my colleagues here in this Chamber and, certainly, all across Capitol Hill who have extended their thoughts and their prayers and have asked ``How are you doing?'' when it comes to talking about Tennessee and our citizens and those who have been so adversely impacted by the tornadoes this week. The damage is absolutely indescribable. Even though, on early Tuesday morning, when the news broke and I started watching some of the local TV stations that had put drones up there around Nashville and Putnam County and over in Wilson County, I could not appreciate the extent of this damage until I walked these neighborhoods. That is something I did yesterday. You can see the damage. Communities are now debris fields. It is just indescribable the power of this storm--an F-2, an F-3, and an F-4. These tornadoes ripped through Tennessee--through Carroll County, Gibson County, Humphreys County, Benton County, Davidson County, Wilson County, and Putnam County. The damage that they have seen on the ground is sometimes for 50 miles. It is just absolutely indescribable. What we have seen are many families who have been left homeless. Their homes are now piles of rubble. We have seen over 100,000 Tennesseans initially without electricity, but because of the good work of the TVA, which is the power generator, and our local power distributors, we have that number worked down to 23,550.…”