Calling for Vote on Disaster Funding

Floor Speech

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Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I want to compliment Dr. Dunn for doing an awesome job. His leadership on this is well noticed and well taken by the people of his district and all north central Florida, working together with the Georgia delegation and other States.

Florida is no stranger to hurricanes. The year before, we had Hurricane Irma that went through the whole State, bypassed the panhandle. In 2018, we had Michael that hit the panhandle with virtually a Category 5. It was 2 miles short of Category 5.

The estimated impact for Hurricane Michael--in fact, it was so severe, before I get into the impact, we couldn't get ahold of Dr. Dunn, so our office was very concerned about that. We took a load, with the Gilchrist County Sheriff, to take supplies up there, looking for Dr. Dunn. We didn't know if he had survived, because nobody had heard. So we are thankful that Dr. Dunn is here, and I know his constituents are.

The impact of this went from timber, cotton, cattle, peanuts, nursery, poultry, vegetables, other field crops, dairy, aquaculture, fruit crops, tree nuts, beekeepers, to mention a few. That is no structures.

The estimated cost just in the panhandle of Florida is $1.5 billion.

We heard these other States talking about agriculture as their largest economic driver in that State, their largest industry. Florida is the third largest State in the Union, with 22 million people. Agriculture is our second largest industry. It is vital.

We look at the past--this is my fourth term in Congress--and I remember Hurricane Sandy came, hit the Northeast. Relief was put out. It was sent out.

This is something that we need to come together as Americans. We send billions of dollars in foreign aid around the world. It is time for us to look internally, fix our problems here, because the expense of these storms, they accumulate. They don't go away from one year to the next, and we are going into the next season, the next fire season. This is something we need to work now, to correct these things.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the leadership of Dr. Dunn.

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