Estimated 50 billion of damage. The senator from florida i just finished my time and made the decision early nextng morning i will be returning to florida the strongest storm ever recorded out of the atlantic notches towards florida but and then to take that track. And some say it could have been worse and i imagine in t this particular instance that is true tampa bay would be incalculable loss and that would have been significant so of the storm could have had a greater impact so with that sheerpl scope we were thinking we should move our families to another part of the state where there is no structurestructure s with overbuilding code to sustain a category four storm that would be very difficult. The the whole state was covered by it with a storm of that size and with this impact i know for a fact dozens of people only to find them worse off than they would have been. Nd and then hurricane andrew f came barely in letter was the impact of the storm or those images and the impacthe on houston they took the threat incredibly seriously with massive evacuation so impac in any event the storm did come we can tell by the loss of life those that are directly related to the storm Carbon Monoxide poisoning sometimes evene running them inside their homes and lease the dozen more did not die but there was a threat that we see every single time. Attac some died from Natural Causes and of course, resawed the news last week those that lost their lives in a Nursing Homes airconditioning unit failed in the middle of the night the heat was unbearable and they passed. So how many more could have died . Why begin by a banking those during the storm they did so even their own families were impacted. H if you see a Police Officer or firefighter they have homes and with the impact that i have on them the impact on getting a the rest of us ready with that extraordinary work they do every day we think of the National Guard with that Accounting Firm and then to find themselves on the road. T and without those Emergency Operation centers who could been dozens of hours a dayoa of not more and also the coast guard for the extraordinary work that they do and are prepared to respond even just a few weeks earlier. I was in the florida keys friday running into firefighters and Police Officers then day came all the way here. And also the National Hurricane center for those improvements that have been year after year but its intensity the more damaging they become the ball began t with the National Hurricane center to have proper notice to carry out these properid evacuations unless they have the information they to have the ability to do so now they are looking at a new storm potential category five. I so we thank them and so many others so lets first talk about of challenges and a large estate in the country the of population a and from jacksonvilles florida down to key west and southwest of naples literally the entire state of florida impacted by the storm because of the size of the route that pose is all kinds of challenges. Ll, e they will help respond o server that puts a strain on the Emergency Operation inot system were counting on the other counties because they themselves are getting ready to deal with that impactorgia then you realize they are preposition and assets but they themselves were also in that direction so that impacted the entire state. Andre that is a terrible thing we lived through that with banter. But underneath the surface the and that the roof could be in tact to be around months if not years to come. The if you have not been to the florida keys it is uniquely one way yen and one way out to a chain of violence from coral rock formations and the further south a place i have spent many days. And if you know, anything about the florida keys with a lot of Small Businesses in the hotels, the charter captains and everything inin between many are generational. Those businesses will literally have no customers with a foreseeable future. And they certainly dont have a tourist. So imagine youre the owner of a small restaurant i can tell you most businesses dont have that kind of reserve. If you think of the florida keys it is an expensive place to live it is viable land on the water which is a challenge to the work force. Get you dont want to drive through a halfhours a day for perot that housing was a trailer parks or small apartments or mobile homes and those are gone. L and think of Florida Agriculture and has an extraordinary presence and a Great Variety of crops. Ture this is an enormous burden of agriculture. Egetable the Sugar Cane Growers and then the dairy. E o every single one has suffered significant damage thoe or i can tell you two days after the storm these are farmers that live off of route but in fact, once it hits water you cannot sell it or use it or be consumed safely. They lost all of that on top of the fact the yields are lower historical is another g lost what they had. And now the stake at least four years. The lost trees and a still oozing through. On all that water the trees i will not survive so it is a catastrophe to the citrus industry. Flo so there will be no florida vegetables in november. The green beans that you eat on thanksgiving because the crop is gone entirely. For and that was extraordinaryia and air that major metropolitan centers. And then i think the media. On the National Networks and local news. There are not a lot of camera crews so the power gets back and then people forget some of these are fourth generation growers. The weather citrus screening or whatever the challenges may be. M. And then the town is built around them. To baa catastrophic event. I fake of those migrant workers. In the affair was a shelter to be deported and mobile homes damaged by water with no electricity. And for those that come forward to try to help bomb pearl and talk about Power Outages and knowhow people lived in florida before the invention of airconditioning with heat and humidity. F to require refrigerated pharmaceutical. M end then to have a true impact this threatens theot fundamental character if we do not help the florida keys. A. We the housing and the like and entire in apartment buildings, towers of apartment buildings populated by Senior Citizens if they tell you what happens when the power goes out. All the food in the refrigeratoa rods. They can no longer eat a lo a lf the food they need. The elevator doesnt work so they cant walk down 13 flights of stairs. This exposes a vulnerability and then debris removal. Some counties are owed money from storms before. Senator nelson and i spent days traveling last week and continued to Work Together helping so many different people. We had an event in a Migrant Community in florida. 800 people turned out. Jacksonville today 1805. Naples florida back on friday and we are about to start in the florida keys helping people because you have no internet and no power how do you go. I dont want to leave on the negative note that there are some uplifting things to point im this. They are out there helping people that cant afford it and helping people cut down trees and remove debris from their it. Homes. Volunteers that came on their own to give it by visiting the baptist Relief Society in south florida. S. 120 people preparing meals fed thousands of people uplifted by the red cross volunteers from new york and new jersey that i run in two and flew down and principals who took over the shoulder shelters because people didnt show up when they were supposed to. A gentle man came forward, they lost their home and had to be saved from floodwaters. There was another week ofey temporary housing to get them the assistance they need. One of my favorite stories and this is the one i want to close with, it is a story that we ran into at the university in southwest florida. A private Catholic University out in the middle of the everglades we went out to visit and there were migrants from the Community Many of whom are probably undocumented were in the country illegally who didnt want to evacuate. Ultimately they showed up andth opened their doors and the students stayed behind the plate with the kids, entertained them throughout the storm and took care of them. Uplifting was the story of two nursing students before the storm hit the you could no longer a goolonger go out, the s office shows up with eightta seniors with a nearby airbus. They literally abandoned them. At the Sheriffs Office brings them into the dorm and cared for them for two days. They c sacrifices these young people put in. They could have gone back wherever they were from the state and took care of them. We want to thank the great wishes we got from here and around the country. Oi this is a storm that impacted us in ways we will feel for a long time and i would ask all of you, to take a moment tonight you can to pray for the island of puerto rico where millions of our fellow americans are stupid, therell of the most powerful