On the recordSeptember 6, 2017
Mr. President, I rise today in support of heroes, in support of unity, and in support of love and compassion. I thank the senior Senator from Texas for his heartfelt remarks and leadership during this time of crisis, and I thank leaders across the State of Texas and across the country who are standing with the people of Texas. Texas is hurting. This hurricane, Hurricane Harvey, is unlike anything we have seen. I grew up in Houston. When you live on the gulf coast, you are used to hurricanes. It is part of life. I remember as a kid sheltering in the bathroom with my parents when Hurricane Alicia hit. We had a tree come down in the front yard. Harvey was different. Harvey was unlike anything we have ever seen before. Harvey is being described accurately as a 1,000-year storm, something that occurs every 1,000 years. In Texas, we have never seen anything like it. Harvey started out as a category 4 storm, hitting South Texas, hitting Corpus Christi, Victoria, Rockport, Port Aransas, and Aransas Pass, all of which I visited in the past 2 weeks. Those communities were devastated by category 4 winds that destroyed homes, that destroyed schools, that destroyed county courthouses, city halls, and buildings and took down wires, took down power, took down water, and took down sewage. As I visited each of those communities, you would drive down the street, and you would simply see home after home that had been obliterated by hurricane winds.…
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