Political Quotes

“we are on the question of the flooding in Vermont. I was born in Vermont. I have lived there all of my life. We live on a dirt road in a small town, Middlesex, up about 1,000 feet, in an 1850s farmhouse. It means a lot to us. It is a place my wife Marcelle and I spent part of our honeymoon 49 years ago. But I saw something I had never seen before in Vermont. Ten days ago, Vermont bore the full brunt of then-Tropical Storm Irene as it dumped more than 6 inches of rain across the State in just a few hours. You have to understand, in our small State--with the Green Mountains running down the spine of it, north to south--the narrow valleys of the Green Mountains, where towns, roads, and rivers are historically intertwined, were particularly hard hit as gentle rivers and streams became rushing torrents of destruction. Whole towns were cut off from the outside world for days. You would fly over, and you could see a town completely marooned--every road going into it, every bridge going into it gone. Homes, businesses, water systems, and miles of roads were swept away. Even worse, some Vermonters lost their lives in these devastating floods. In our State, we have had an unprecedented wave of flooding this year. We had two spring events previously declared as major disasters. Vermonters have shouldered these great burdens. We have pulled together from all parts of the State, all walks of life.…”