On the recordDecember 21, 2017
I want to thank the gentlewoman from New York; I want to thank the chairman; but I do want to take a moment and particularly thank the gentlewoman from New York for the kindness that she showed the first victims of this horrific hurricane season. I remember coming back to Congress in the immediacy of Hurricane Harvey. Many don't know, but I left my home in a firetruck--not out of desperation, but to go where my constituents were--and spent the rest of the time with 14,000 homeless evacuees in a shelter that had been set up immediately with concern about the city of Houston. We had meetings starting at 6 a.m. In the evening, as the waters started moving in different communities and different communities became flooded, we could see evacuees carrying their only belongings--pillows, just a paper bag--flooding into the George R. Brown Convention Center. This is serious for me. I remember seeing elderly persons being evacuated after the Addicks Reservoir, Barker Reservoir was released and family members standing on what was now the shore waiting for those loved ones. I know the family and went to the funerals of the six family members who died in Greens Bayou in my congressional district. I introduced a bill, H.R. 3686, which the gentlewoman from New York was quite interested in. It was for $174 billion. If we had that amount now, I would be more than happy to share that with Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. We don't have that.…
