Pulling Together As A Nation

PULLING TOGETHER AS A NATION -- (House of Representatives - September 07, 2005)

(Mr. KINGSTON asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I have the honor of representing the entire coast of Georgia from Savannah to Brunswick to St. Mary's, Georgia, and during my 14 years in Congress, we have had a number of tropical depressions and hurricanes, and we have had to evacuate and so forth. And we have been hit, but certainly not to the degree that the gulf has been.

Yet, one thing I know from that experience is that you do not sit around and point fingers. You get folks their basic needs after a storm. You get them water, you get them food, you get them shelter, you get them electricity, you get them medical attention, you get them transportation. These things are what we need to be doing right now.

Sure, we can sit around in Louisiana and say, why was the National Guard not ordered, and who is in charge of that? Why were the 4,000 buses in New Orleans not activated? Who is in charge of that? We could say, why was the evacuation of New Orleans only made on Sunday, the day beforehand? We can sit around and do that, but that is not going to help people who rightfully need medical attention, food, and water.

This is the time to pull together as a Nation, as different people from all over the States with different perspectives and different social statuses and different income brackets, to unify into one and help those on the ground who need our help the most.

The United States Congress is doing that. We passed the emergency bill for disaster relief last Friday and we will do it again this week. We are going to continue to pull together to get this recovery going as fast and as orderly as possible.

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