Lloyd Bentsen: “Once again this bill provides necessary funds for a number of water projects in the Greater Houston Area. In particular…”

“Once again this bill provides necessary funds for a number of water projects in the Greater Houston Area. In particular, it provides $4 million for the Brays Bayou project which is a precursor to a large Federal-local flood control project that borders up against the Texas Medical Center, which is the largest medical center in the world; and it includes $9 million for the Sims Bayou project, which is a Federal-local project that is halfway through construction. Last summer, as Members know, all of southeast Texas but in particular in the Greater Houston Area, we suffered a very catastrophic flood event through Tropical Storm Allison. In fact, this was somewhat of a 100-year event. We had over 70,000 homes which had water damage. We had floodwaters come out of the banks of most of the bayous and watersheds in the area. The total cost of the storm is estimated to be in excess of $5 billion, close to $2 billion of that occurring in the Texas Medical Center with the 45 institutions that are included within that center.”