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Parkersburg Mayor Bob Haylock, left, gave Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley an update on the ongoing disaster recovery efforts in his community.
Parkersburg resident Judy Becker choked back tears Monday as she watched Iowa congressional leaders, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Gov. Chet Culver meet with local officials and speak to the press.
Her home, visible from the fire station where the event was held, sits without a roof — just as it looked on May 25, when tornadoes leveled her town.
“What are we going to do?” she breathed to no one in particular. “What are we going to do?”
Becker and her husband are in their 60s and, like many Iowa residents affected by natural disasters, are currently battling their insurance company.
“We’ve been living in a 30-foot trailer that’s parked by our house,” she said. “It’s getting cold. We’re watching the families around us rebuild their homes. We just don’t know what we’re going to do.”
Two hours south in Cedar Rapids, Calvin Jenkins sat quietly on a bench near Green Square Park. He said he wasn’t sure what made him drive downtown for the meeting with the government officials.
“We lost everything,” he said. “Everything except our truck, our car and the few things we had time to pack. We didn’t live grand before the flood, but I’d give anything to turn back the clock and appreciate what we had then.”
Gov. Chet Culver, U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Rep. Dave Loebsack viewed an exhibit of flood photographs at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art before speaking with local officials and the press about federal disaster assistance funding.
Jenkins and his family are staying with relatives while they try to salvage their home and “jump through government hoops” to get assistance.
“Those people in that room — they don’t want to hear from me or the other folks like me,” he said as he stood and walked back to his car. “They don’t want to look us in the eye because they know down deep that they’ve failed us.”
He started his car then re-opened the door and stood. “If you have a chance, you tell them that the people here in Iowa are tired. Tell them that we’re working hard and trying to put our lives back together. Tell them that we don’t have any more patience for government that is more interested in politics and looking good than it is in helping the people.”
Pelosi, a Democrat from California and the nation’s first female Speaker of the House, toured several areas in Iowa that had been affected by recent natural disasters. Culver and U.S. Reps. Bruce Braley and Dave Loebsack, all Democrats, joined Pelosi on the tour and at the three scheduled stops in Des Moines, Parkersburg and Cedar Rapids. U.S. Rep. Leonard Boswell, also a Democrat, joined the group at the Des Moines stop in his district.
On June 30, Congress approved $2.65 billion in disaster aide, much of that earmarked for Iowa. Now that members have returned from summer recess, an additional $10.1 billion assistance package is expected to be debated and approved. Pelosi said that much of that money would also be earmarked for flood-ravaged Midwestern states.
Earmarks, however, do little good when, according to Culver, there is so much red tape involved in accessing the money from federal agencies such as the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Iowans have yet to receive portions of the June allotment, including $85 million for Community Development Block Grants.
“We want that money on Monday, and we want the next installment — $200 million — by the end of this month, without all the red tape,” Pelosi said. “Every day counts and uncertainty is an impediment.”
Describing the initial $2.65 billion appropriation as a “down payment,” Pelosi promised to use the Rebuild Iowa Commission’s report to argue for more Iowa assistance.
Culver, who was described by Pelosi as impatient and relentless in his pursuit of assistance for Iowa, said that the red tape involved with disbursing the funds must be eliminated. He promised that if rules aren’t developed by HUD to allow distribution of the $85 million by Sept. 15, he would call a special session of the state’s legislature.
While Pelosi and the congressional delegation largely abandoned political rhetoric during the tour, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) placed the blame flatly on the Bush administration.
“While Congress acted quickly in June to get an infusion of $2.65 billion for Iowans and others hit by floods and weather, the Bush administration is still sitting on these funds,” he said.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in press statements before and during the Pelosi visit, however, charged that Democrats fluffed up the funds with pet projects and then left on summer recess before fixing the problem.
“It’s time Congress pass a disaster package that isn’t weighed down by political ‘extras’ that the President can sign into law, because Iowans thus far have been treated unfairly by the Democratic Congress,” he said.
