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Floor Speech
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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to address the urgent need to support the people of Baltimore in the wake of the tragic Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse.
This is near and dear to my heart because of the 35W bridge collapse, and I am well-aware of the response of Congress at that moment many years ago, and I think it is relevant to some of the discussions that have come out of the Baltimore bridge collapse. I thought I would share them with my colleagues today.
First, my heart is with the entire city of Baltimore, especially the families and loved ones of the six workers who died and the workers still trapped on the boat that struck the bridge. I know our colleagues Senator Cardin and Senator Van Hollen are working around the clock to support the victims' families. President Biden was just at the bridge and has pledged his support to get this rebuilt and to open the port and to do everything necessary. And we must stand with them.
I thank the heroic first responders, the Coast Guard, the National Transportation Safety Board, and the Maryland officials, including, of course, Governor Moore, who acted swiftly and made sure that lives were saved. Yes, you think about the story of the immediate response to the mayday and the first responders in the middle of the night who made sure other cars didn't get on that bridge. You also think of the Governor there the next day making sure people knew what had happened and what their plans were.
I am thankful for the efforts of brave workers leading the cleanup process, which we know poses serious risks to their safety. The Key Bridge wasn't just a way to get from Hawkins Point to Sparrows Point. It was a unifying force for the people of Baltimore from all walks of life. As one longtime resident, a doctor and son of immigrants, put it:
Every single Baltimorean felt that bridge fall down. That's our London Bridge. That's our Golden Gate Bridge. It was like a friend constantly saying hello to me in the morning . . . The bridge was a lifeline to schools and work . . . It was a bridge to the American Dream.
In addition to the devastating human tragedy of the collapse, the lack of a bridge that carried over 31,000 vehicles across the river every day will have economic repercussions, and we know it now. It is a major artery for the city and critical point of access for the Port of Baltimore, which handles more cars and trucks than any other port in our country, supporting more than 15,000 jobs and indirectly supporting 140,000 more. Every day that port is closed could cost our economy up to $15 million. That is why we have no time to waste. Baltimore's recovery and our entire economy depend on us stepping up and working together.
Here is our story in Minnesota and why it is relevant. On August 1, 2007, in the middle of the most beautiful day both here in Washington and in Minnesota, the eight-lane I-35W bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River. It took the lives of 13 people and injured many more. Just like in Baltimore, it would have been so much worse if those first responders had fled away from danger but fled to it. They literally didn't know in Minnesota what had happened.
In Baltimore, you could see a ship had hit it. But in Minnesota, we didn't know what had happened. But they ran into those waters of the Mississippi River and got survivors out and helped people. Our bridge actually carried more traffic than Baltimore--over 140,000 vehicles a day. It was eight blocks from my house. It was a bridge that I would take all of the time to bring our daughter to visit her friend. As I said that day when it happened, a bridge just shouldn't fall down in the middle of America; but when it does, we rebuild it.
Here are the heroes very similar to what you see in Baltimore: Shannon Hanson, the off-duty Mississippi firefighter diving in and out of the water searching for survivors up and down the river; Paul Eickstadt, the Taystee truck driver who veered off the bridge to save a schoolbus full of kids and then burned to death in his truck, which caught fire because of how he avoided that schoolbus; Jeremy Hernandez, the worker on that schoolbus. It was a bus of kids that were at a summer program. That bus, which they call the ``miracle bus,'' was just hanging on the edge of the bridge. Instead of running off that bridge, he got every single kid off that bridge to safety by kicking open the emergency door and, one by one, getting those 52 kids off the bus.
Our job in Washington was, yes, to go there and stand with our first responders. And the minute we got there, the next morning, former Senator Coleman, Republican Senator, and I saw the emergency work. We had big billboards up everywhere within 12 hours telling people where to drive and how the traffic was diverted. But our job was to rebuild the bridge, to get the funding immediately to get it done. We worked together.
And within 2 days after that bridge collapsed, I came here and got a waiver of the cap of how much money could be spent on a bridge like that. It was a record. We got the waiver done. Everyone joined with us in the Senate. As I look at what was my chair over there as a freshman Senator, I remember the procedural hiccups involved in all of this, and I remember deciding my best bet was sit in my chair and say I wouldn't leave until it got done. And when the Senate started one morning, Senator Durbin came over to me and said as they were saying the prayer: Somehow, I think you are here to do more than pray. And I said: Yes, I am not going to get up from this chair until we get this done.
He helped me to get that bridge done and include it in a major bill we had pending at the time, which was fortunate. So we got the funding immediately.
President Bush went back to the bridge several times. We were able to get it done. Not one Senator in this Chamber or one House member in this Congress played a blame game. Everyone saw it as the tragedy it was. They knew there would be investigations. They didn't mess around just because it was in a purple State--our State--or a blue State or a red State. We all came together to get it done.
And that bridge got built in record time--339 days from start to finish. Thirteen months later, an eight-lane highway, a humongous bridge--the most traveled-on bridge in the State of Minnesota--got done.
Rebuilding and recovering from the Key Bridge collapse demands that same bipartisan collaboration. The day of the collapse, President Biden said he would ``move Heaven and Earth'' to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge as soon as humanly possible. It is on Congress to help.
I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Commerce Committee to get to the bottom of what caused this collapse, but I also stand ready to support Senators Cardin and Van Hollen as they work to secure the funding to rebuild the bridge. I call on all of our colleagues to join us and not mess around.
In Minnesota, we stand with the people in Maryland, where the lights on our own I-35W bridge were lit in Maryland State colors of red, white, yellow, and black immediately after the collapse.
There is plenty of time for investigations and what went wrong with that large, large ship. That is happening right now. But the immediate focus of our country, because of the economic repercussions not only on Baltimore but on the entire country, is to get this rebuilt and to call people out when they are just trying to play politics with it and say things that are completely inappropriate when six people died on the bridge.
It wasn't that long ago that the I-35W bridge collapsed and our colleagues joined with us. Many of the people in this Chamber are still here. We need to do the same now.
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