Bob Wise: “I want to report on the flooding in West Virginia over this weekend, and I particularly want to say, following 2 days of…”

“I want to report on the flooding in West Virginia over this weekend, and I particularly want to say, following 2 days of visiting hard-hit communities, there are a lot of people to thank. Particularly high up there is the West Virginia National Guard, which once again responded and provided the semblance of order and peace and hope that many people needed to seize on to during these troubled times. Remember, Mr. Speaker, that this is the second time in 4 months that many of these communities have been hit by ravaging floods; the second time in 4 months. Mr. Speaker, I started out Friday night in the Charleston office of emergency services headquarters. We moved Saturday and Sunday to preparing. Sunday I was with Governor Caperton as we toured much of the flood-torn area by helicopter and touching down in a number of communities, and then yesterday, Mr. Speaker, I traveled by car over 400 miles across many of the counties in central West Virginia that had been hit by floods. Let me report to you, Mr. Speaker, that once again for the second time in 4 months a lot of our communities are digging out, and washing mud out of basements and homes, are having to look at fences that were just replaced in many of our farm fields, now torn again or damaged again, are having to regroup and reorder their lives. This is actually the third time in 10 years for floods of this magnitude.”