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Begin forwarded message:

From: White House Press Office <noreply@messages.whitehouse.gov<mailto:noreply@messages.whitehouse.gov>>
Date: September 16, 2011 4:31:27 PM EDT
To: "Owens, Missy" <MOwens@doc.gov<mailto:MOwens@doc.gov>>
Subject: Fw: Pool Report #3 and Final/VP Duryea, Pa.
Reply-To: White House Press Office <noreply@messages.whitehouse.gov<mailto:noreply@messages.whitehouse.gov>>


----- Original Message -----
From: Borys Krawczeniuk <bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com<mailto:bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com>>
To: Barkoff, Kendra
Sent: Fri Sep 16 16:09:54 2011
Subject: Pool Report #3 and Final/VP Duryea, Pa.

Pool report #3/VP speech at Duryea, standing at podium at Elm Street
and Chittenden Street

A week earlier, water raged through the intersection.
The vice president approached the podium with three little children,
one of whom, Kai Hubert, 6, he lifted into his arms as he began to
speak.
"Why don't you tell them what you just asked me"" Mr. Biden asked.
"OK, um, can you help us fix my grandma and grandpas house?" Kai asked.
"Yes, I can, yes I can, I'll tell you what," Mr. Biden replied as
others around him laughed.
Mr. Biden reminded "folks" he's from Scranton.
"I hope you don't hold that against me being upriver," he said.
He thanked Gov. Tom Corbett, Rep. Lou Barletta and Sen. Bob Casey for
being present and their efforts. Mr. Casey met Mr. Biden
at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport and was driven to
Duryea with him.
He credited with Duryea Mayor Keith Moss for having "a hande on this
stuff" as well as any town or mayor he's ever run into during a
disaster.
"Folks, look, I know from my own personal experience that there is
nothing we can do to make you whole in the sense that a piece of your
life and a chunk of your heart has gotten ripped out here. When you
have four or five feet of water in the first floor of your house and
you lose that First Holy Communion picture or grandson or
granddaughter (photo) or you can't find that wedding ring that got
washed away or you go back and look at that picture the last time with
your mom, those things we can't replace. All I can tell you is they'll
stay in your heart and you'll get through it," Mr. Biden said.
Mr. Biden recalled that shortly after he was elected a senator in
November 1972, he got a phone call from U.S. Rep. Daniel J. Flood, a
legendary local congressman who was a House Appropriations Committee
subcommittee chairman and is widely credited here for helping the
Wyoming Valley recover from the 1972 Agnes flood.
Mr. Flood ordered him to travel to Wilkes-Barre and view the flood
damage, which totaled more than $1 billion.
"Thousands and thousands of people had that look that you all have in
your eyes," he said. "And you know it, some of you remember it, some
of you had friends who were wiped out then."
This time, there was more rainfall than Agnes. He recalled recent
visits to Erie, Johnstown and Pittsburgh to view disaster damage.
He took note of the distress of the residents and pointed to workers
from Mericle Commercial Real Estate, who have been helping Duryea
clean up damage.
"I'll tell you its appropriately named," he said. "I tell you, I'm
told by the mayor and the congressman you guys have done a heck of a
job so far. It's hard for some of the press from out of town to
understand that this was a river. Where we're standing right now was a
river ... But folks you can and you will come back."
Recalling that he grew up not far from Sen. Casey's Scranton home, Mr.
Biden, who moved out of Scranton when he was 10, said the U.S. Senate
had properly passed a $7 billion appropriation Thursday to fund the
Federal Emergency Management Agency
. He promised the aid would be on the way soon.
"Right now, it doesn't seem like to all of you that there's a lot of
hope," he said. "But it will happen. We're not going anywhere,
congressman, Sen. Casey, they're not going to let anybody walk away
from the requirements we have."
FEMA, he said, would "help people get back in the place you were
before this storm." He promised temporary housing, up to $30,200 for
repairs, small business loans, community block development grants,
repairs to a local sewage treatment plant, a new levee for Duryea..
"We're not going away," he said. "There's no reason why this street
won't look like it did before -- and better."
Mr. Biden recalled a lightning strike at his Wilmington, Delaware,
home a few years ago while he was on the NBC news program, "Meet the
Press."
"It destroyed my home that I had just built," he said. "One third of
the home collapsed into the basement. The smoke was so thick you could
not see two inches inside any window. Every single thing that was
porous was destroyed ... So I know that empty feeling. I could see the
look in my wife's eyes. But folks, you'll come back and we're going to
help you come back."
"We're going to help your grandma," he said to Kai.
He turned to Gertude Yachna, who by then was wearing his blue blazer.
He said he loved her because she has the same first name as his
favorite person, "my aunt Gertie," who made "the best rice pudding"
and "scratched backs better than anybody in the world."
Mr. Biden said the devastation wasn't worse because of the Wyoming
Valley levee .
"We got to make sure not to just come back, we've got to make sure it
doesn't happen again," he said. "Because Mother Nature is tough, it
will happen again, rains fill fall again, flash floods will come
again. We will be faced with this again. So we know better."
"We work for you, you pay our salary, we work for you and don't you
all forget it," he said. "I'm here to tell we're not leaving, the
federal government is not stepping away."
Mr. Biden said some people have told him they are reluctant to ask for
help, but pointed out the taxes of Duryea residents help paid to fight
wildfires in Texas and Gulf of Mexico flooding.
"Who helps pay to get them taken care of? The people in Duryea," he
said. "You helped them so no one should feel guilty about any help.
You deserve it. This is not a Duryea problem. This is an American
problem ... When Americans are in trouble, through no fault of their
own, when natural disasters strike, it's the obligation of every other
American to help. And that's what we're going to do."
Alluding to congressional reluctance to pay for disaster help without
cutting spending elsewhere, he said, "Don't tell me in a disaster,
you're not going to fund it unless we cut education, unless we cut
something else to pay for it."
He asked resident to have patience.
"And as my grandpop Finnegan used to say, 'Keep the faith,'" he said,
referring to his grandfather, the late Ambrose Finnegan of Scranton.
"But every time he'd say that, I'd walk out the door and you'd hear my
grandmom yell, 'Joey, don't keep it, spread it.' We're going to spread
the faith here folks. We're going to get this done. So keep a stiff
upper lip, okay? Keep a stiff upper lip."
FEMA administrator Craig Fugate took the podium next, promised
continued help and urged residents to register for help with his
agency, including temporary housing and other measures.
"When the cameras go and it's not being written in the news and nobody
knows about your community, we're going to be here," he said. "And
it's going to take a lot of work ... As the vice president said, this
won't be quick, but it will get better. We're behind you and we're
here to support you."


END OF POOL REPORT


--
Borys Krawczeniuk
Staff Writer
Scranton Times-Tribune
570-348-9147

-----

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