Louisiana

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASSIDY. Madam President, I rise today to bring attention to an ongoing situation in South Louisiana.

Heavy rains are hammering our communities. A state of emergency exists across the area, with more rain expected today.

It has been a difficult 2 years, pandemic aside. Eight months ago, Lake Charles was devastated by Hurricanes Delta and Laura, one of the few times in history in which a hurricane followed upon a hurricane, almost identically tracking.

Yesterday, areas got anywhere from 8 to 15 inches of rain in 12 hours. It was heartbreaking to see Lake Charles hit again by natural disaster.

And this is 18 to 15 inches in 12 hours, and there you can see the impact of cars flooded up almost to their window. There is a home in the background, and you can see where the water level is relative to that home.

And here we have another example of vehicles flooded, to give you an idea of how much rain occurred in a short period of time.

Now, other floods and disasters in parts of the country--often floods and disasters in parts of the country, other than the west and the east coasts, get overlooked. I am here to make the case to not overlook. We cannot ignore the pain and destruction left in the wake of these storms.

Overnight, 80 people were rescued from flash flooding in Lake Charles. On top of the rain and submerged roads, there were warnings for possible tornadoes, prompting shelter-in-place precautions.

I heard from constituents that students were kept in schools until late into the night.

Now, it is not just Lake Charles; Baton Rouge flooded as well. In Baton Rouge, more than 250 people were rescued after the city got a deluge of over 13 inches of rain on Monday night.

And this is Baton Rouge--not as bad as Lake Charles in that picture, but even more people had to be rescued.

This morning, at least 15,000 homes and businesses were without power in East Baton Rouge Parish.

The number of homes and businesses flooded in Lake Charles and Baton Rouge combined is not known, but I can promise we will continue to hear distressing and saddening stories about the loss of both life and property throughout South Louisiana in the coming days.

Now, through firsthand accounts, social media posts, and local news coverage, we have already heard emotional stories. In Lake Charles, a resident and their newborn had to swim to safety as water levels rose. In Baton Rouge, a body was found submerged in a vehicle that had gone into a canal.

Water rescues and emergency evacuations have been underway for the last 24 hours, but Americans are at our best when we help those in need, and folks in Louisiana are resilient.

So I give thanks to all the brave men and women of local fire and police departments for their work in saving lives. We will get through this together.

When I was in Lake Charles after the last hurricane, Hurricane Delta, I picked up a bracelet that read ``Lake Charles Strong.'' We are Lake Charles Strong; we are Baton Rouge Strong; we are Louisiana Strong.

While some outside of our State have already forgotten about the natural disasters of 2020, Louisiana has not. Many have yet to return to their homes.

Just 2 weeks ago, President Biden visited Lake Charles, talking about infrastructure in front of the Calcasieu River Bridge. Well, when I met him, I raised the issue of a disaster relief package.

Our State was hit by hurricanes and winter storms, as well as the pandemic. A record five main storms made landfall last year in my State. The strongest was Laura, a category 4 hurricane, hitting Lake Charles, followed by Hurricane Delta, a category 2, just a month later.

Louisiana farmers were also hit with catastrophic damage to livestock, crops, and structures during unprecedented winter storms.

We need a disaster supplemental legislation to help communities struggling to recover. We cannot afford to allow the impact of an entire year's worth of natural disasters to go unaddressed.

Our best line of defense for these natural disasters is coastal resiliency, which in our State is funded through what is called GOMESA. That is revenue from offshore oil and gas development.

And folks wonder why I fight so hard to preserve that funding for GOMESA. GOMESA allows Louisiana to rebuild our coastline so if there is a hurricane coming onshore, there is the resiliency from a coastline which is built out with wetlands to absorb the strength of that hurricane.

We need to preserve GOMESA to continue having dollars flow not just to Louisiana but to other Gulf Coast States to protect against natural disasters.

It will be raining today and maybe longer, but to those--oh, one more thing to mention.

There is a portion of the President's--a portion of the President's infrastructure bill which has not attracted a lot of notice but which I would agree with. It is called nature resilience--using the natural structures of our coastlines in order to increase resiliency against water events and other events.

And in a spirit of bipartisanship, but once seeing the necessity of it, I would support that provision as I now understand it.

So for all those in South Louisiana, please stay safe, listen to local officials for further instructions.

I will continue to monitor the situation and help, as possible, with recovery efforts. My office is in contact with the White House, ensuring the full support of the Federal Government is there to help now and then to help recovery.

Our prayers are with those experiencing flooding and other hardships. We thank the American people for their support.

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