Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, it is the seventh game of the American League Championship Series. After being down three games to two, the Astros, who dedicated their season to the people of Houston, had tied the ALCS three to three against the powerful New York Yankees.

The winner goes to the World Series against the mighty Dodgers.

It is the top of the ninth inning in Houston. The Astros are up 4 to 0. The Astros take the field. Pitcher Lance McCullers is on the mound throwing curveballs. He strikes out Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius. One out. McCullers attacks the plate with a dirt-diving curveball. Sanchez strikes out. Two down.

The fans are standing. They are screaming. Bases are empty. One out remains. McCullers throws another curveball to batter Greg Bird, and the Yankees, Mr. Speaker, have trouble with the curve. It is a fly ball, center field.

Springer catches the ball. Third out. The fans go wild. Astros win, Astros win, Astros win. The city of Houston starts singing and dancing in the streets. American League Champs.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, for years, Lynda could not bring herself to speak about her past turmoil and nightmares.

Lynda is finally telling about her tortured life. When she was 16, two neighborhood boys drugged and sexually assaulted her. Highly drugged, the boys convinced her to have sex for money just once. But it wasn't for just one time, Mr. Speaker. They set up online advertisements to sell her and other girls.

When one of the other girls tried to escape, they tied her to a chair and beat her up mercilessly. They mixed drugs into the food to maintain control over the girls. It was years before Lynda finally escaped her turmoil.

Today, the rape and torture still haunts Lynda, but she works every day to become a survivor. I recently introduced the Abolish Human Trafficking Act that provides grants to ensure that victims like Lynda get help and services, such as mental health counseling, legal aid, job training, things that they deserve from us. This will help trafficking victims put their broken lives back together.

Trafficking is a scourge, and we need to send a message to everyone that our kids are not for sale.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, graduating from high school and going to college is an important goal for many, many American teenagers. College offers the promise of an education, new friends, and new experiences.

When parents drop their children off at their new dorms, they are entrusting those universities with the well-being of their kids. The dark reality is that, in many cases, this trust is woefully misplaced.

Mr. Speaker, approximately one in five women are sexually assaulted in college. That is one out of every five of our daughters, sisters, and friends. This shocking statistic would lead most people to assume that colleges have extensive protections to support those people on campus who may be sexually assaulted. This is just not the case.

Last year one of these victims published an anonymous op-ed at Harvard about her attack. The title of her article was, ``It's Me, One of Your Statistics.'' She described the night of her attack.

A friend invited her to his dorm room to study for an upcoming science midterm test. She thought nothing of it, but when she started to become uncomfortable, she decided it was important for her to leave. But he did not let her leave. He sexually assaulted her.

After the attack, she ran to a friend's room for help. She refused to shower, knowing that she had to immediately get a rape kit done. Assuming the university would be able to help her, she called their health services department, but the news she received from them shocked her. Harvard University Health Services didn't provide rape kits. They didn't provide any post-rape care whatsoever. There was nothing they would or could do for her. The university essentially threw up their hands and just turned her away.

She was forced to call an Uber and paid someone to drive her to the hospital across town. But once she arrived, there was no staff at the hospital trained to deal with sexual assault victims or trained to collect forensic evidence.

Sexual assault forensic examiners, or SAFEs as they are called, are specifically trained to properly collect forensic evidence from victims and provide the victim with care and support that is sensitive to the trauma that they have experienced. She had to wait over 3 hours for somebody to arrive. This is unacceptable, and it is sad.

It is estimated that less than 25 percent of victims of rape report their crimes. They fear this exact scenario, that they will be turned away, dismissed, ignored, or not believed.

To address this problem I have introduced legislation that would require a hospital to provide access to a sexual assault forensic examiner or have a plan in place to quickly get a victim to a nearby hospital that can provide forensic services.

This bill is named for Megan Rondini. It is called the Megan Rondini Act, in honor of a 21-year-old sexual assault victim who was denied proper post-rape treatment at a hospital in Alabama. This bill will ensure victims can access the care that they need.

Megan's hospital didn't have a sexual assault nurse examiner on staff either, so when she reported the rape to the authorities, the authorities did not believe her. Anguished, Megan returned to Texas, despondent, and tragically took her own life. The only thing she knew for certain in her case was that she was failed by the university, the hospital, and the law enforcement agencies.

Universities should have a sexual assault victim advocate on staff-- all universities. A SAFE should be available for victims at a nearby hospital, and law enforcement must quickly analyze sexual assault kits because there are hundreds sitting on the shelves all over the country that have never been tested.

Mr. Speaker, sexual assault victims are people. They are mainly young people at universities. As the Harvard student said, they are not just statistics on a hospital spreadsheet. Society can no longer ignore the silent, painful cries for help of victims of rape on our college campuses anymore. These days need to end.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, as the band played the latest country western song, gunfire erupted from the 32nd floor window across the street.

Twenty minutes later, when the shots stopped and the smoke cleared, 59 people were murdered and over 520 were wounded.

The SWAT team quickly found the hiding place of the evil villain, and as they approached, the outlaw shot himself. Thus, he avoided a date with the hangman. Justice occurred.

The casualties would have been much worse but for quick action by members of the crowd. People, including former military and off-duty police officers, helped hide and cover others while endangering their own lives.

The first responders, police, doctors, emergency medical technicians quickly tended to the wounded. These unnamed quick responders, both civilian and law enforcement, and medical, without regard to their own life, saved others.

The band had stopped playing music, but the cries of the wounded and the tears of the mourning continue, Mr. Speaker. We must have prayers for Las Vegas, and God bless them one and all.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, since Hurricane Harvey hit our area last month, stories of Harvey Heroes continue to bring our community together and make us grateful for the incredible people that we call neighbors. There are many uplifting stories of those who grabbed their personal boats and set out in the waters to rescue individuals, many of whom they did not know. Our first responders answered the call time and time again. And so did so many people whose names we may never know. For all of them, we thank them from the bottom of our hearts.

So many people have opened their homes, their hearts, and their wallets to help Houston recover. One such community was the Indian- American community right in the greater Houston area. They have already raised over $1.6 million dollars. 700 Indian-American volunteers have dedicated more than 24,000 hours to their city, and together, they have distributed over 28,000 meals to our neighbors in need.

One specific story I would like to highlight is that of a group of Indian-Americans, led by Houstonian, Jiten Agrawal, made their way through the unparalleled flooding after the Hurricane to reach a student apartment complex near my alma mater, the University of Houston, that had been flooded and was without power. The president of the Indian graduate students' organization, Ravi Shankar, reached out to the community to help, and help is what they gave. These volunteer rescuers brought food and water to over 180 students and helped transport them back to their families or a safe location.

We are grateful to these volunteers, some of the many Harvey Heroes, for helping

Houstonians get through a very difficult time. They are just one of the reasons why we are Houston Strong.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, in the inky darkness of night, during the hammering rain of Harvey, reservoirs released even more water with little notice to people downstream. Meanwhile, hundreds of first responders battled the incessant rain, rising floodwaters, and raging currents to rescue people from homes.

Inside the dimly lit call center, 911 dispatchers answered call after call after call, racing to keep up as tense thousands dialed in. Dispatchers like 26-year-old Erika Wells worked 20-hour stretches, then trying to grab a nap or two.

With phones constantly ringing, the dispatchers sent rescue teams to homes packed with people in need of escape, a woman in labor, and families trapped on their roofs. As the 50-inch rain kept pounding and floodwaters rose, the dispatchers answered, calmed, and helped those in need.

As the morning Sun finally broke through the Texas sky, the dispatchers emerged from their stations and finally checked on their own families, many of whom had their own homes flooded. These dispatchers are some of the Texas Proud that helped save others in the floods of summer.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, as Hurricane Harvey's hammering floodwaters crept closer and closer to their home, Annie and her husband, Gary, became nervously anxious because, you see, Annie was pregnant and needed to get to the hospital.

But the 2-mile drive to the hospital was no longer possible due to high rising water. So they called 911, but the lines were busy. Both doctors in training, the Smiths started preparing for a home delivery. Finally, a call to Annie's school brought a rescue team to their door. But the waters were still high and moving fast.

Risking their own lives, numerous neighbors and firefighters formed a human life chain, passing Annie along in the raging floodwaters to a high-water truck. A few hours later, Annie brought new life--Adrielle Smith--into the world.

That is the thing about Texas, Mr. Speaker, we help each other. That is what makes us Texas strong.

Congratulations to the Smiths on the birth of their hurricane daughter, Adrielle.

And that is just the way it is.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I appreciate it, Congressman Weber, for allowing us to talk a little bit about Hurricane Harvey and what folks did down in the Texas area.

While it was still raining hard, I get a phone call, and I looked at the area code on my cell phone and I said: I think that is Massachusetts.

And sure enough, it was Representative Kennedy from Boston, Massachusetts, calling me saying he would do whatever he could to get Bostonian's first responders down to Texas to help out. And that is what happened, as has already been mentioned by all of my colleagues tonight: both sides of Members of Congress working on this issue to help in Harvey. Beto O'Rourke is from El Paso. You are from Beaumont.

People may not realize that there is a sign in Beaumont. I used to represent Beaumont, as you know. As you are driving in from Louisiana, there is a sign that says: El Paso, Texas, 876 miles away.

That is how far it is from Beaumont to El Paso, and yet Beto O'Rourke made his way all the way to the Houston-Galveston area to help out as well. The whole State helped with what was taking place.

The magnitude of the devastation--not just the weather, but the devastation--if you take the State of New Jersey and turn it on its side and set it down on the Gulf Coast, that is how much devastation there was in the State of Texas. That was the area that was hit where disaster occurred. They got rain as far as Dallas and San Antonio, and, of course, we know that it went all the way up to Kentucky a thousand miles away. Still, they were getting rain days later.

I want to talk about one of the people involved in the rescue. Dr. Babin talked about a lot of folks who helped out. Here is another guy who helped out. You have probably never heard of him: Steven Perez, Houston police officer, 34-year veteran of the Houston Police Department, married, two kids. The rains are coming down. It is in the middle of the night. It is his time to go on shift at the Houston Police Department. His wife is saying: Don't go; it is too bad. And he said: I am going to work. It is my duty.

And he did. He left home. He couldn't get to the downtown Houston Police Department, so he is headed in a different direction, my understanding is, up to Kingwood, where I represent--that is about 25 miles away from downtown Houston--where he was going to do what he could to help folks out there. He took a bad turn, got under an underpass, and his patrol car was submerged and he drowned. He was out doing what he wanted to do: to protect and serve.

He is a symbol of all the first responders, of all the badges that they wear from all over the country who came down there to do their duty, to help people in need. We regret his loss. We are with his family and our prayers are with his family, his wife and his two kids, for their future.

At his funeral, of course, in Houston that I had the opportunity to attend, there were a lot of police officers from all over the country showing their respects to another first responder.

With this hurricane that came through the Houston area, I have kind of an unusual district, so I got hit several places. People got flooded.

Michael McCall showed, earlier, a map of the Houston area, that there are two reservoirs that are supposed to protect the city from flooding. Water filled up those reservoirs, and people whom I represent are on the downstream of that reservoir. They got flooded when water came over it.

But I also represent people upstream, and they got flooded because the reservoir overflowed up in the northwestern direction. People also got flooded in the middle of the night after they thought the storm was over with because Conroe--and, Mr. Speaker, I know you don't know where that is, but it is just northwest of Houston. They have a lake up in Conroe. They started letting water out of Lake Conroe because it was too full. Water came rushing down the San Jacinto River into Humble, Texas, and Kingwood, Cypress Creek. All that overflowed, and people got flooded in all of that area as well--thousands of people. Their homes are devastated. In fact, two of those people who have lost their home, they are still staying with us, friends of ours. We do take care of each other.

One thing that I want to mention is we need to get a regional plan to prevent these disasters in the future. It would be a whole lot cheaper, in fact, to prevent these floods than try to continue to pay for the damage of these floods. No question about it, we have to do recovery now for those people who have lost everything they have, do what we can here in Congress, and we are going to do that in a bipartisan way. But we need to have a plan for the future as well.

I have introduced legislation for the Corps of Engineers to come up with, in 90 days of our legislation being signed by the President, to evaluate all the conditions in the flood plain area that was flooded and come up with a long-term plan, whether it is building one more reservoir, two more reservoirs, making the ones that we have bigger, desilting the channel to Buffalo Bayou, San Jacinto River, whatever it is. We need to come as a united area from Mr. Weber's district all the way up to Mr. McCaul's district and everybody in between on what we are going to do to solve the long-term flooding problem.

Because, you see, September comes around every September. Mr. McCaul talked about the flood of 1900. That happened in September, almost to the same day. Here this flood happened at the end of August, near the beginning of September.

I hope we can do that. I think that we can, and I do want to reiterate what has been said about people who just helped each other. They didn't know each other. It wasn't just neighbors helping neighbors. It was people who didn't know each other. Some of them who were flooded out themselves were doing everything they could to help other people.

There were a lot of bass boats. They weren't all from Louisiana. There were a lot from Louisiana, but I think it is every young boy's dream in Texas to own two things: a pickup truck and a bass boat. You saw all of those pickup trucks and bass boats on the road and in the water--because a lot of them are pretty high--rescuing people. People they did not know, Mr. Speaker. They were just looking to help other individuals. It is remarkable.

I have been through a lot of hurricanes. I grew up in the Houston area. I remember Hurricane Carla in 1961, before most of you all were even around. We have had a lot of hurricanes since then. Nothing like Harvey. It was the granddaddy of all of them. It hammered the Houston area, but we are using this as an opportunity to fix things because this Hurricane is not going to defeat the spirit of Texans. It is not. We will resolve to overcome whatever the difficulties are now and to fix things in the future so that we can have a response when the rains of September come.

The rains have stopped, the flood waters have gone down, the rainbow is out, the kids are playing in the parks again, but we are still at work solving the problem of what took place and moving on because, as I said, Harvey will not defeat the Texas spirit. And that is just the way it is.

Madam Speaker, undaunted by the massive 50 inches of hammering rains and devastation of Hurricane Harvey, Texans quickly volunteered to help other water-soaked neighbors.

Bay City High School Secretary Linda Leissner was manning the city's emergency operations call center when she realized the city needed school buses and drivers to help in the rescue because of Harvey's quickly rising floodwaters, so she called the coaches. The coaches quickly manned the high school's buses, and in the torrential rain they began rescuing and evacuating residents of the town, including some of their very own students.

One of the coaches, Nathan Janak, put it best: ``It was just people helping people. It was one of the greatest displays of human kindness I have ever seen.''

Madam Speaker, stories like this make us Texas Proud and give us the determination to recover from one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. Harvey will not defeat us. As we say, ``Don't mess with Texas.''

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, Arctic Circle in Eureka, California, used to be a place where you could get a great burger and a cold milkshake. But not anymore thanks to a lawsuit. A serial plaintiff alleged that their counters were too high and their doors were not quite wide enough. So without a chance to fix the alleged infractions, the drive-by lawsuit shuttered the doors of Arctic Circle.

The Americans with Disabilities Act has made tremendous progress in increasing accessibility. But small businesses across America are being targeted by serial plaintiffs who troll for minor, correctable ADA infractions. If the business had notice, they could cure the problem rather than pay the shakedown by the lawyers.

My bill, the ADA Reform Act, requires businesses to be notified of an alleged violation and be given time to fix the issue before a lawsuit can commence. If businesses fail to correct the infractions, the plaintiff can and should sue.

It is time to stop attorneys from lining their pocketbooks off the backs of disabled Americans and small businesses in our country.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, the country is recovering from natural disasters that are taking place all over our land: on the West Coast and the Northwest, we have the wildfires; over the weekend, we had Hurricane Irma going through Florida, now through the Southeastern States causing havoc; and then, of course, we are still reeling from the hammering that we received in Houston and other areas because of Hurricane Harvey, where thousands have lost their homes, over a million cars are destroyed. Natural disasters are taking place.

In the midst of all of this, yesterday was a day we should also remember, not because we had natural disasters, but because we had an attack on the United States 16 years ago. Yes, September 11, 2001.

All of us who are old enough remember exactly what we were doing, as we should always remember what we were doing that day--a defining moment in our personal lives.

I was a judge in Texas at that time. I was driving my Jeep--an old, red, beat up Renegade Jeep--to the courthouse, and I was listening to KILT Radio, Hudson & Harrigan in the Morning, a country-western station. Robert B. McIntyre, the newscaster, came on and said that a plane had hit one of the towers in New York City. Like most folks, I didn't know what to make of that. I thought maybe it was an accident. But a few minutes later, he was back on the air talking about a second plane crashing into the other tower in New York City.

I pulled over to the side of the road, as other people were doing, and listened to what was taking place in America as we were attacked. We all know the rest of the story about some wonderful people who were hijacked on a plane in Pennsylvania who took that plane down that apparently was headed for Washington, D.C., probably this building. They saved the lives of Members of Congress and people who worked in Washington. The fourth plane crashed into the Pentagon.

I would just like to talk about that fourth plane. That plane, American Airlines Flight No. 77, takes off from Dulles, takes to the air, in less than 50 minutes turns around, and is headed back to the Pentagon.

As you know, Mr. Speaker, the Pentagon is right next to Arlington Cemetery. At the top of the crest of Arlington Cemetery is the Tomb of the Unknown. I call it the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It is the Tomb of the Unknown.

The Tomb of the Unknown is guarded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all of the time, by the United States Army 3rd Infantry Division. The oldest infantry division in the United States has the honor, the duty, and the privilege to guard the tomb of America's unknown who died for us.

So what happened on September 11 when the two planes crashed into the World Trade Center and the other plane is headed toward the Pentagon? Yes, the soldiers are on guard. And did they leave their post? Absolutely not. In fact, they not only did not leave their post, Mr. Speaker, they called for reinforcements, and they had 30 other soldiers create a perimeter around the tomb to guard it from whatever may occur from that terror that hit in the skies. They were there on duty.

I assume, and I don't know this, but I assume those guards that day knew about the first two planes that hit the World Trade Center. The sergeant major on duty did not want those soldiers to leave the post. He called for reinforcements to protect the tomb from that terror in the skies.

Remarkable stories that took place that day, Mr. Speaker, stories about Americans helping other Americans, just like Americans are helping Americans today with the wildfires and the hurricanes. There are many other stories that we will never know about.

We know that on that day, as the smoke was burning in New York and in Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon, our first responders, when that terror came to America, they didn't run. They ran toward that terror in the skies. Those men and women in our law enforcement agencies, our fire departments, emergency medical technicians, and thousands of others ran to help other

people, strangers, when those planes, those terrorists, attacked America.

We know that right down the street here at the Tomb of the Unknown where Arlington Cemetery is, where we bury our war dead, we know, of course, that that tomb stayed guarded, protected from that terror in the skies. Remarkable people, these Americans.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time. I want to talk about what has been occurring in southeast Texas for the last several weeks.

I represent part of the Houston area, north Houston and into other areas of Harris County. Houston is one of many cities in Harris County, Texas. Of course I am going to talk about Hurricane Harvey.

On August 26, Texans across the State braced themselves for Hurricane Harvey. It was a quick hurricane in that it developed very quickly in the Gulf of Mexico, and it hit southeast Texas near Corpus Christi and Rockport, and it did considerable damage in Rockport. I understand from Congressman Farenthold, who represents the area, that the entire small town was just obliterated by Hurricane Harvey. That is right on the coast of Texas.

Hurricane Harvey made its way up the coast toward Houston, riding the coast and the Gulf of Mexico. When it got to Houston, Texas, it slowed down to some extent, and for 5 days it rained. It rained all day and all night, and the floodwaters rose in the Houston, Harris County area.

All told, we got about 50 inches of rain in those 5 days. Seventy percent of Harris County had floodwaters at the highest time that the flood occurred--70 percent of the Houston, Harris County area.

Mr. Speaker, I grew up in Houston, I remember the hurricanes that came through Houston when I was a kid. Hurricane Carla in 1961--or 1962--we thought that was the biggest thing that ever happened to Houston. But there were others since then.

More recently, we had Tropical Storms Allison and Alicia; and then the Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Humberto, Gustav, Ike. And then we had three holiday floodings in the Houston area on Memorial Day, Labor Day, and tax day--IRS day; and now Hurricane Harvey more recently.

Hurricane Harvey, all of the experts say this is the worst natural disaster that has ever hit the Houston area; some say in North America. But the bayous in Texas, the way the drainage--if I can use that phrase--in the Houston area works: Houston is about 50 miles from the Gulf Coast. It is flat. Some areas are just right at sea level.

And we have a system of bayous and creeks that all move through the Houston area down the Gulf of Mexico. So if the water is in Houston, it has got to go southeast to the Gulf of Mexico. And, of course, when the rains came and the floods came up, there was no place for the water to go because there was so much water.

After Hurricane Harvey hammered Houston, it worked its way back out to of the Gulf of Mexico just a little bit to gain some strength, gain more power, and then came back ashore further on down the coast in Jefferson and Liberty Counties, Beaumont, Port Arthur. You probably never heard of those towns, but it went through that area, into parts of Louisiana, and then worked its way on up through Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky. I think it finally dissipated and it has gone away.

Let me be a little more specific about what happened in two counties further to the east, two counties that I used to represent as a Member of Congress. Jefferson County is the home to the largest selection or collection of refineries in the United States. About 22 percent of the Nation's refineries are along the channel. Port Arthur and Beaumont are where the refineries are. Port Arthur, Texas, right on the coast, was completely flooded during Hurricane Harvey, and the refineries were shut down. I know that because the gasoline prices have spiked overnight because that fuel is not being produced. Most of those refineries will be back on line very soon, if they are not already on line.

So the flooding was massive. If you take the State of New Jersey and you turn it on its side and set it on the Texas coast from Louisiana down to Corpus, that is the size of the floods and the rains in Hurricane Harvey. It is a massive area that affected a lot of people throughout Texas.

The Second Congressional District that I represent was flooded like most of the congressional districts in the area. And during the rains and the floods that were coming down for those several days, people got into action. They didn't wait for the rains to stop or the floods to stop coming up. Ordinary folks started helping each other.

With the first responders and the volunteers, 72,000 people were rescued. That is a massive number: 72,000. Here is one of those rescues right here. We have got the National Guard, the Texas National Guard came in--all of them came into southeast Texas--rescuing a lady and her child. That is just one photograph of many photographs of rescues that took place.

The amount of water that came down was 50 inches. If you take the Astrodome and fill it with water 86,000 times, that is how much water hit the Houston area. That is an unbelievable amount of water that came into the Houston area.

I would like to talk about a few folks that helped out in the rescue. One of those individuals was Houston Police Sergeant Steve Perez. I talked about him the other day on the House floor. I would like to mention him again because he is a perfect example of our first responders and what they are willing to do in times of need.

Sergeant Perez was a 60-year-old veteran of the Houston Police Department. He was at the Houston Police Department 34 years. He grew up in San Antonio, Texas, went to ROTC in San Antonio, commissioned as a second lieutenant, and he became a major in the Army Reserve. After that, he moved to Houston, Texas, and joined the Houston Police Department.

Here is a photograph of Sergeant Steve Perez.

He lived in Houston, of course. Rain is coming down. He is going to report for duty. His wife suggested and really encouraged him and begged him not to go because of the floods around where they lived. He is headed to the Houston Police Department headquarters. He could not get there. So he calls on the radio and he was told he couldn't get there.

He found out that the rains were hitting all of the Houston area, especially in a place called Kingwood. Kingwood is about 25 to 30 miles from downtown Houston, up in the northeast area. He is in his car. He turns and started heading up to Kingwood. He goes under an underpass-- it is raining real hard--he couldn't see very well, and his car went in, flooded, and he drowned.

Sergeant Steve Perez was married and a father of two.

He was looking for a path to Kingwood for over 2 hours, trying to get there to let folks know they needed to evacuate the area.

Next Wednesday, Sergeant Perez will be buried in Houston. His funeral is at 9 o'clock at a downtown church. There will be hundreds of police officers from all over the State of Texas and other States there to honor him, along with a thousand or more civilians.

Sergeant Steve Perez gave his life in the line of duty, the thin blue line. He was protecting us from the tragedy. Remember, he could have made a choice just not to report for duty that day because he couldn't get to work. He made the choice to take care of other Houstonians.

One other officer I want to mention is Officer Bert Ramon. He has stage IV colon cancer. That is serious stuff, and he reported for duty. He wasn't going to sit out this crisis. He couldn't get downtown, so he teamed up with Houston's Lake Patrol. We have boats in Houston for flooding, but we have Lake Houston and some other big waters where they use boats for different reasons. But he teamed up with the Houston Lake Patrol division.

While he was working with them for 3 days, he rescued 1,500 people, including seniors, children, and handicapped folks; he and the folks he was working with on the Lake Patrol rescued 1,500 people.

I just admire him and all of our first responders who got out in all of this really tough weather to do what they needed to do, but wanted to do. Officer Ramon receives biweekly chemo treatments in Houston for his cancer, but he went ahead and did what he wanted to do to serve and protect the rest of us.

He rescued many of them that were seniors, as I mentioned. He jokes a lot. He told those seniors that they were on the San Antonio River Walk cruise. There is a river that runs through San Antonio through downtown, the River Walk, and he told them they were on the River Walk cruise. He was trying to be lighthearted and put the people that he was rescuing at ease.

Other first responders, firefighters, EMS, of course, the police were working day and night, sleeping at the stations. Many of them had their own homes flooded, yet they are going to do good work for other people.

But they weren't the only ones. Volunteers came to Houston, Dallas, Arlington, San Antonio, Texas; and many from across State lines. I had the opportunity to meet police officers from Ohio; California; Arlington, Texas; and other places, who were there to help. And they came from, like I said, all over the country to help folks.

We had 12,000 National Guard in Texas helping people. That is all the National Guard we had, and they came as well.

I do want to mention the fact that it wasn't just first responders. We had volunteers coming from Boston, Massachusetts. It took them a while to find Texas. I mean, it is a long way away. California and New York sent officers as well to help.

To all of those folks whose names we may never know, we are grateful. Those of us in Houston, Texas, and the affected areas are grateful for those first responders and the volunteers that came from all over the States.

I am not sure you can see this photograph, Mr. Speaker, but this is a long line of pickup trucks and bass boats. I don't know if you own a bass boat or not. It is the dream of every Texas boy growing up to own two things: a pickup truck and a bass boat. I mean, life is good if they can get those two things. There are some other things, but I am not going to mention those at this time.

But here are a bunch of pickup trucks from this end of the poster, all the way to the other end, and these are coming from Louisiana. Louisiana is the next State over from Texas. We love the folks in Louisiana. We claim them; they claim us. Some say we vote in their elections, and they vote in our elections. I don't think that is true, but we are all kindred spirits. But they call this the Cajun Navy. And what the Cajun Navy did was bring not only bass boats and pickup trucks, but they filled these boats up full of Cajun food and supplies, and they came to Texas to do everything they could to help rescue individuals. We appreciate them.

The Cajun Navy weren't the only ones doing this. There were people from other parts of the State. I don't know that you could find Brownwood, Texas, on a map, but it is northwest, sort of in the panhandle area. And there were two young guys. I think they are in their twenties or so. They were watching all of this on television. So they get in their pickup trucks and they drive from Brownwood, Texas, and they stopped in Austin--which is still 200 miles away from Houston--at a Cabela's sport center. They went in there and each one of them bought a bass boat, a motor, and a trailer; hooked it up to their pickup trucks, filled it up with all kinds of stuff that was needed, and they headed to Houston. For 4 days they helped rescue individuals.

This is just a few examples of neighbors helping neighbors.

The folks in the Houston area, Mr. Speaker, they didn't wait for governments--I am not just talking about the Federal Government, but any government--to start helping individuals that needed help during the rescue operations that were for about 4 days. A lot of my constituents, frankly, don't like government. They do things on their own, and that is what people were doing in the Houston area.

You may have seen many of these examples on television. It was heartwarming to see so many people, strangers helping strangers, neighbors helping neighbors. Race or politics had nothing to do with any of this. It was higher than politics. It is all about people. And people jumped in to help. Many people whose own homes were flooded out, yet they had a boat and they are helping other people, helping their neighbors rescue individuals.

There was an elderly man who was trapped inside his SUV, Mr. Speaker, and the neighbors see that he is trapped in his SUV. Floodwaters are coming up. Neighbors and strangers watched, and they didn't know what to do. Water is coming up. They don't have a rope. They can't get to him. So these people who did not know each other form a human chain from dry land to where he was in his SUV as water is coming up and pulled him out, and got him, and rescued him to make sure that he was safe.

The waters in the current were too strong for anybody to swim, so they formed a human chain, and they rescued him, saved him.

Every morning, Mr. Speaker, there is a couple, maybe an elderly couple--they probably don't want to be called that--but a couple in the Houston area who goes to Chick-fil-A in the mornings for breakfast. J.C. and Karen Spencer are their names. They call in and order the same order every day at the same time at the local Chick-fil-A.

The Chick-fil-A manager, Jeffrey Urban, knew them. He would see on the phone the caller ID. He knew the phone number, and before he even answered the phone, he started preparing what they were going to order because they order the same thing every day.

But on the morning of August 28, as Hurricane Harvey is there in Houston hammering down and unleashing trillions of gallons of water, Jeffrey that morning was closing the restaurant to protect the restaurant from flooding the best he could. He was going to head for home, but the phone is ringing, and he knew who it was. It was J.C. and Karen Spencer who call in every morning.

He thought they were calling for their usual breakfast, a Texas burrito is what they are getting ready to have. So he picked up the phone. But they weren't calling for breakfast. They were calling for help. Their house was completely flooded. The waters were rising fast. They had tried all the emergency numbers. They couldn't get ahold of anybody. They are in their home, they can't get out, and they don't know what to do. They panic, to some extent, so they call Jeffrey at the Chick-fil-A as they do every morning.

So what Jeffrey did was, he didn't just go home. He, along with the restaurant owner, headed to the Spencer's house with their jet ski in tow.

As you can see, here is Jeffrey, and here is Karen. He takes the jet ski, he goes into the house, picks her up, takes her to dry land, and also helps her husband safely leave. It is just a good example of folks just taking care of other people in the area. They were able to get out, and their home was later destroyed.

It is just an example of the spirit of people and the attitude of people in the Houston area when this hurricane happened. I could spend a lot of time telling about other folks, and I am going to tell as many stories as I can.

Speaking of time, Mr. Speaker, can you tell me how much time I have remaining.

Good, Mr. Speaker. I will look at the clock and make sure I don't go overboard here.

In Houston, a woman went into labor as Hurricane Harvey flood waters began to rise. She was helped, likewise, by a rescue truck of neighbors and firefighters who, once again, formed that human chain.

Two Beaumont police officers and fire rescue divers spotted a woman and her infant child floating in a canal in Beaumont, Texas. The canal is rushing to the Gulf of Mexico. The canal is full. The crew were able to pull the woman and her daughter from the canal and save their life.

Another mother saved her own child's life. This is what mothers do anywhere in the world. She was 41 years of age. They were in the water for a long time. When they were finally found, the baby was found clutching the chest of her mother. The mother did the best she could to keep the child above the water, water that she could not apparently touch the bottom of wherever she was, and the two Beaumont police officers and fire and rescue divers pulled them out of the water. The mother later died, but the baby is okay. That is what mothers do, Mr. Speaker. They take care of their kids.

We have a furniture business in Houston. It is owned by kind of a famous guy there. His name is Mattress Mack McIngvale. He is always on TV advertising his store and telling people to come there and he will save them money if they buy stuff at his story. It is called Gallery Furniture.

Here is what happened. At his store, volunteers gathered his delivery trucks on Sunday, used those delivery trucks all over the Houston area--trucks that deliver furniture--and they started rescuing people who were stranded. They rescued 400 children and adults. He didn't take them to a shelter. He took them to his furniture store, and they stayed in his store for several days. I don't know, they may still be there. But he let them live there and form a little cubicle, so to speak, where they could be safe, and he let them stay on their furniture that he had. He even allowed the families to have pets in his store as a rescue place for people who were in need. It was irrelevant that all that furniture was new. He just let them stay there. That is just the way he is and the way other people are.

About 1,500 miles away from Texas, two young boys raised money for hurricane victims in Texas. In western New York, two cousins, Dominic and Evan, started a lemonade stand to raise money for hurricane victims. They sold lemonade for 25 cents and donated all the money to the food bank of Houston.

I have 12 grandkids, Mr. Speaker, and two of them live in Austin, Barrett and Brooklyn. I have had them both here on the House floor before. They and their schools started making packages that they donated for the recovery effort, and those packages were brought to Houston that they donated and made at their schools. They had all kinds of stuff that folks needed and created several of those.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that you have just received a signing of the legislation, the Hurricane legislation as I call it. I missed the signing down the hallway in the Speaker's Office, but now that is sent to the White House I understand.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green). He and I are very close friends, Mr. Speaker. We both became lawyers the same year in 1973. We worked at the courthouse. I was a prosecutor, and he was a defense lawyer in Houston. We did battle together there. We both resigned our positions, ran, and became judges the same year, spent on the bench 22 years a piece, resigned the same day, ran for Congress, and we both won.

He is a good friend of mine. He and I probably don't agree on a whole lot, but we do agree on some things. Civility is what we need here on the House floor and in Washington, D.C., to discuss things in a civil manner.

So I thank the gentleman for coming by. I appreciate his help. His district is south of mine and got hammered as well during the floods. We are all working together, the Texas delegation and other delegations, to make sure we help folks who have tragedy reach their lives. So I thank the gentleman for his work. We have been working together on this very important issue.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Judge Green, once again, as I like to refer to the gentleman for all his work here in Congress helping out folks in Texas, and I will continue to work with the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, I have talked quite a bit about the floods. I want to mention a couple of other things about the flooding in the Houston area. We have two reservoirs--they call them dams in other places--but they are earthen reservoirs that collect water, and the water is stored in those reservoirs. Both the reservoirs flooded. Water then was let out of the reservoirs and went downstream, as we call it, and flooded houses, as well as the rain.

Here is a photograph of homes that were flooded by the storm but also flooded because Addicks Reservoir water was being released out of Addicks Reservoir and flooded these homes. But it is just a good example of the area that was flooded in Houston covered 70 percent of the Harris County area at its highest peak. But after the floods, after the rain came and the floodwaters started going down, people started helping in the recovery business, the same folks. People were volunteering to help each other. After the waters started going down, they were in the recovery business.

Churches got involved, of course, government agencies got involved, and first responders got involved. I live up in the Kingwood area in a town called Humble, Texas, and that town got a lot of water and a lot of flooding in it. Near both of those areas, Kingwood and Humble, a lot of churches were working. The Second Baptist Church and St. Martha's Church turned their facilities into a makeshift shelter for those who had need.

I went to Second Baptist while they had a lot of folks there, now they have rescue crews--I say rescue crews--they have crews who are going out to different neighborhoods and helping with the removal of walls, sheetrock and anything else that was flooded. It is not just one or two crews. These are 10-person crews. They have about 70 of these crews--that is 700 people they have going out every day to help people recover some of their property but also get that drywall torn down and ripped off, because in the Houston area, in the summer heat and humidity, water can do a lot of damage if it is not dealt with immediately.

But to all those people, from Second Baptist and St. Martha's and many other faith-based groups, we appreciate the fact that they are out there doing what they can to help other individuals as well.

I mentioned the Cajun Navy. The Cajun Navy--there were other people in boats who helped as well--a lot of boats. You probably saw a lot of them on TV--rubber boats, bass boats, and some people had other kind of boats that they were driving up and down the streets that were flooded. The residents who weren't able to recover, rebuild, take down the sheetrock, for example, in these homes, they got lots of help from other volunteers.

I mentioned Second Baptist Church. There were about 1,600 volunteers who helped at Second Baptist, and they are still helping people.

They have received, as have all of the agencies, the nonprofits, and the government agencies, a lot of supplies, a lot of stuff that is needed for people who have lost everything. It is remarkable. No matter where you go, they are storing all of this. They have a lot of it. Some areas don't have enough room. Some churches don't have enough room to store all of the goods that people can use--clothes, food, and other goods--and they are going to other places.

I say that because these are people who just get it. They are people in the Houston area and people out of State sending what they can. There are 18-wheelers full of stuff from many parts of the country to help people get their lives back together, all donated by corporations, donated by individuals, donated by schoolchildren. They are all headed to Houston. That is being distributed, as well, for people to recover.

Mr. Speaker, Hurricane Harvey, as I mentioned, is certainly the worst that I have ever seen, growing up in the Houston area. Harvey cannot defeat the people in Texas. They are resilient about: We will not be defeated. We will not be victims. We will be survivors and victors over this hurricane.

That is the attitude. You have seen that attitude on national television. You just turn on any TV station and you see that happening. That is the attitude of the people who are there. I think it is an encouraging attitude. It is the Texas spirit, as we like to say. I know it is in other parts of the country, but it is in Texas, as well.

We use the statement: We are Texas strong, we are Houston strong. We are. The folks in the Houston area refuse to let Harvey defeat them. People who don't know each other, people who do know each other, neighbors, strangers, all races, all ages are just out there helping each other. They don't really want a lot of recognition for that. It is just the thing they do.

We are a very diverse community. I think we are the second most diverse, behind New York. We have about an equal number of Whites, Blacks, and Browns. We have a strong Asian population. We speak about 115 languages in the Houston area. Very diverse. But it doesn't make any difference what you look like or how old you are, people were helping each other. And they are still helping each other.

It is people above politics. That is what is taking place. We are not talking politics. Nobody is talking politics. Everybody is talking about people and helping each other.

We do have some minor problems when these tragedies happen nationwide; natural disasters. We have folks in the Houston area--they were out-of-towners--coming to town to do criminal stuff. They wanted to loot.

The sheriff and the chief of police made it real clear early on that looters would be caught and prosecuted. That has happened. There were signs out among the area of Houston about looters and what would happen to them if they were caught. I won't go into those signs, Mr. Speaker, but there were a lot of signs warning looters to not loot this particular property or there would be some unpleasant consequences.

We didn't have a big problem with that. There was some price gouging by some businesses and some individuals. In Texas, if you are a price gouger, there is going to be a day of reckoning. It is against the law. It is a $20,000 fine

per occurrence. Those people will be prosecuted, the few who were there.

But that is not the emphasis of what I am trying to say today. I am trying to say and want to say thanks to the people of the Houston area and the people who came to Houston to help in the rescue, who are helping now in the recovery, because they need that recognition.

I also want to thank the House. The first bill we took up this week was for Hurricane Harvey recovery. It quickly passed the House and went down the hallway. The Senate passed it, added something to it, it came back to here, and we just recently sent that bill to the President of the United States to sign it. It is about $15 billion in aid for victims of Harvey.

Most Members of the House supported, especially, the House bill. It shows that we can come together in times of tragedy. We are mindful of the fact that, as we speak here and are recovering in Texas, folks in Florida are watching Hurricane Irma come their way. So we will send those boats that came to Texas and those pickup trucks East and help the people in Florida. This is really an American issue, it is not a Texas issue. We all have to work together on this important time.

Lastly, I would just like to conclude, Mr. Speaker, by saying the attitude of the people who were affected, to me, is inspirational. The rains came down and the floods came up, like we sang in Bible class about Noah. The floods came up and flooded, but those floods have disappeared. The sun has come out. There is a rainbow over the area and people are putting their lives back together.

There is nothing that can defeat the human spirit. We appreciate Congress quickly sending the $15 billion in relief money to the area. This is a disaster that some have estimated will cost the Houston economy over $100 billion. I don't know how much it is.

We will do what we can here in Congress to make sure that we can get aid to people in Texas and those who are going to be affected by the hurricane in Florida. We appreciate our first responders, our civilian volunteers, the military, the National Guard, the Coast Guard, all of our military resources--the Navy even put two ships off the Texas coast to bring in supplies and help--all the volunteers, the first responders, the firefighters, EMS, police, and other agencies that came together to work together to deal with Harvey and not accept defeat, but only accept victory.

And that is just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green), my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 12 o'clock and 48 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the

House adjourned until Monday, September 11, 2017, at noon for morning- hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, as Hurricane Harvey rampaged across Texas, the heavens opened up and 50 inches of rain hammered down on the Houston area.

After 2 days of hard rain, on August 27, 60-year-old Houston Police Officer Sergeant Steve Perez got up, as he does every morning, put on the badge, the shield over his heart, and began to drive to work to help rescue flood victims. It was dangerous. The floodwaters were high and constantly rising. People's homes and businesses were flooding. Perez's wife even asked him not to go that day. But, Mr. Speaker, Sergeant Perez knew the people of Houston were counting on him.

He made a wrong turn when he was headed to work, fighting the flooded streets. Because of that, the 34-year veteran of the force, Sergeant Perez, died in the floodwaters. He gave his life for the thin blue line, the line that protects and serves the rest of us.

Officers like Sergeant Perez are just a cut above the rest of us. They willingly put themselves into harm's way for their communities, and their motto is to protect and to serve.

Houston will remember Texas lawman Sergeant Perez as one of their own, putting his life on the line during one of the worst natural disasters in Texas history.

Next week, as hundreds of officers from all over the State of Texas and other States stand in silence, taps will be played for the end of watch for Sergeant Perez. Sergeant Perez is one of the rare breed--the Texas breed of law officers that sacrifice for the rest of us.

While we mourn the loss of Sergeant Perez, we thank the good Lord that such men ever lived.

And that is just the way it is.