Appointment of Conferees on H.R. 2864, Water Resources Development Act of 2005

APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H.R. 2864, WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - September 13, 2006)

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Mr. ABERCROMBIE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support Congressman MELANCON's motion to instruct conferees on H.R. 2864. This motion would direct conferees to accept provisions that will protect coastal communities in Louisiana and Mississippi from the storm surge of a category 5 hurricane.

Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf on August 29, 2005, and was a category 3 hurricane that did not even directly hit the affected areas.

Yet, Katrina was able to inflict monstrous and unimaginable damage upon Louisiana and the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. One year after Hurricane Katrina, the area remains a terrible, twisted portrait of lives and families and whole communities washed away; home by home, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood.

As a result of Hurricane Katrina:

More than 1,000 people died.

The total number of immediately displaced people has never been determined. Estimates range from the hundreds of thousands to the millions.

The Louisiana parishes of Orleans and St. Bernard were especially hard hit by flooding, with an estimated 77% of Orleans's population affected, and nearly all residents of St. Bernard.

In Mississippi, 55% of Hancock County's population is estimated to have been affected by flooding and/or structural damage.

In the greater New Orleans area alone, there were 160,000 homes and apartments destroyed or heavily damaged by the storm.

The metro New Orleans area has lost approximately 400,000 residents.

The National Flood Insurance Program has paid out $17 billion in property damage claims in Louisiana alone, only a fraction of total damage.

Hospital capacity in Orleans parish dropped in half immediately after the storm. In St. Bernard, there are still no hospitals open.

The Army Corps of Engineers has only begun to raise sinking levees and deal with unfinished hurricane protection and flood prevention projects. But, they're only rebuilding the levees to withstand a Category 3 storm, Katrina's level. Prudent planning and common sense would dictate that they be raised to Category 5 levels to protect the more than two million residents along these coasts.

I urge my colleagues to support and vote for this motion to instruct.

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