Senator Reverend Warnock: “I’m proud of the great work being done, and I applaud the public servants and the community leaders who make it all possible. But in my travels and in my conversations with these small-town mayors, with Georgians, with folks especially in our rural areas, it is clear that more needs to be done, and that help cannot come soon enough ”

Senator Reverend Warnock: “If we expect hardworking Georgians to do their job in the midst of disaster, they should expect us to do ours. It is a reasonable service. It is the least we can do”

Senator Reverend Warnock: “I’m going to keep showing up until we get it done”

Watch the full speech HERE

Washington, D.C. — FollowingPresident Biden’s submission of a $100 billion request to Congress for supplemental disaster assistance funding, U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) called on his colleagues to immediately approve these additional federal investments for disaster assistance to get working families the support they need to continue recovering from Hurricane Helene and other recent extreme weather events. In his emphatic remarks from the Senate floor, Senator Warnock highlighted the struggles of Georgia’s farmers and families and outlined how the additional disaster assistance would help local communities, particularly Georgia’s rural and agricultural communities, recover. The President’s supplemental disaster funding request followed a successful bipartisan call led by Senator Warnock to kickstart federal disaster funding efforts.

“At its peak, Helene left more than one million Georgians without power, 300 boil water advisories across the state, over 200,000 homes with some level of damage, and countless communities facing a long road to recovery. Most tragically, 228 individuals perished in Helene’s devastation. 34 of them were Georgians, six of them were children. And so, as we pray with our lips for those we lost, we must pray with our legs to help those still reeling and recovering from this devastation. While Congress was out of session last month, because I understood the urgency, I called on the Senate to come back to Washington to pass additional disaster assistance funding. Weeks have passed since then, but the urgency remains,” said Senator Warnock.

Senator Warnock’s remarks on the Senate floor marked his latest effort to move Congress to action to speedily direct more investments to recovering Georgia families and communities following recent natural disasters. Senator Warnock has been active on the front lines of Georgia’s Hurricane Helene response efforts from the beginning and has pushed to deliver additional disaster assistance to Georgians, particularly Georgia’s hard-hit agricultural communities:

1. Prior to Hurricane Helene the Senator had long been pushing to secure additional federal disaster assistance to help Georgia’s farmers following devastation caused by Hurricane Idalia in 2023 and Hurricane Debby in August 2024;
2. Following Hurricane Helene’s landfall in October 2024, Senator Warnock led the bipartisan call in the Senate for Congress to return to Washington from the October recess and urgently pass additional disaster relief;
3. The Senator led the bipartisan Senate push that successfully led the White House to submit Monday’s supplemental disaster assistance request to Congress;
4. Lastly, to date Senator Warnock has helped secure over $231 million in individual and household assistance to Georgians from FEMA, and he has hosted three outreach clinics in rural communities to help connect roughly 200 Georgians with federal assistance following Hurricane Helene.

“I’m proud of the great work being done, and I applaud the public servants and the community leaders who make it all possible. But in my travels and in my conversations with these small-town mayors, with Georgians, with folks especially in our rural areas, it is clear that more needs to be done, and that help cannot come soon enough,” Senator Warnock said during his floor remarks. “In Ray City, I joined President Biden to survey a damaged pecan grove. An estimated one-third of the state’s pecan crop was destroyed, as well as cotton. Over 100 poultry houses were damaged or destroyed, and 8 million acres of timber were impacted. All told, we are talking about more than $6 billion in total damages to Georgia agriculture.

“Too many of our farmers have taken too many hits with these storms over the years, which is why I pushed the president to send Congress a request for additional funding immediately so we can give a lifeline to our hurting agriculture industry,” Senator Warnock continued. 

Watch Senator Reverend Warnock speak to WFXG (Augusta) on his efforts and continued push for more federal assistance for Georgians HERE

Read the full transcript of Senator Reverend Warnock’s floor speech below:

“Madam President, I rise today to call on the United States Senate to immediately, immediately approve the supplemental disaster assistance request sent to us by the President earlier this week so we can get Georgians and Americans all across our country the support they so desperately need following the two recent storms, Hurricanes Helene and Milton.”

“Sadly, these storms are becoming more frequent and becoming more destructive, and we will see again and again the need of the Senate to respond with the urgency that this demands.”

“I was pushing for additional disaster assistance for Georgians reeling from past storms before hurricane Helene landed in our state; namely following Hurricane Idalia last year and Debby in August of this year. My office was on the front lines of the federal response to Hurricane Helene in Georgia, and I was proud to work with a bipartisan group of my colleagues, including Senator Tillis and Senator Budd of North Carolina, to kickstart this disaster funding process.”

“I want to thank the President for listening to the people of our state and expediting this request. I want to thank the Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray for acting on this priority today—it’s something she and I have talked about over the last several weeks.”

“Since these storms tore through Georgia, and much of the southeast, we have seen light in darkness, as communities come together to help one another, neighbors supporting neighbors. I was down in Augusta a few weeks ago, and it was tough to see that devastation. But part of that light piercing the darkness could be seen in the eyes and in the effort of Robert Lanier of Lanier’s Meat Market. I was driving — we were going down the street, I asked my staff to do a U-turn. There was Robert Lanier, local business owner, Lanier’s Meat Market, literally providing free food and water to his neighbors, the very food that he sells every day to take care of his family. He was giving it away to his neighbors. A light shining in the darkness. I saw this in Homerville, Soperton, and Gibson, where my office hosted Community Resource Clinics to connect Georgians to federal officials and resources, helping some 200 Georgians in the process. In Quitman and then Valdosta, my team and I hit the road to deliver food, health care supplies and water to our neighbors in need.”

“I spent time with small-town mayors all across our state that were desperately in need of a response. And to date, FEMA has provided over $229 million in individual and household assistance to Georgians in need and continues to operate numerous disaster recovery and other assistance centers across the state. I’m proud of the great work being done, and I applaud the public servants and the community leaders who make it all possible. But in my travels and in my conversations with these small-town mayors, with Georgians, with folks especially in our rural areas, it is clear that more needs to be done, and that help cannot come soon enough.”

“In Ray City, I joined President Biden to survey a damaged pecan grove. An estimated one-third of the state’s pecan crop was destroyed, as well as cotton. Over 100 poultry houses were damaged or destroyed, and eight million acres of timber in America’s #1 forestry state were impacted. All told, we are talking about more than 6 billion dollars in total damages to Georgia’s agriculture sector. Too many of our farmers have taken too many hits with these storms over the years, which is why I pushed the President to send to Congress a request for additional funding immediately so we can give a lifeline to our hurting agriculture industry.”

“At its peak, Helene left more than one million Georgians without power, 300 boil water advisories across the state, over 200,000 homes with some level of damage, and countless communities facing a long road to recovery. Most tragically, 228 individuals perished in Helene’s devastation. 34 of them were Georgians, six of them were children. And so, as we pray with our lips for those we lost, we must pray with our legs to help those still reeling and recovering from this devastation.”

“While Congress was out of session last month, because I understood the urgency, I called on the Senate to come back to Washington to pass additional disaster assistance funding. Weeks have passed since then, but the urgency remains. While it may not be in the headlines, Georgians who are at the center of this devastation are living this every single day. While I’m here to remind my colleagues of the moral urgency to act, I know families and farmers back home still recovering. They are the ones who understand the dire circumstances clearly.” 

“There’s one family in Augusta, Georgia, a married couple with two young elementary school-aged kids, who following Helene, listen — are still residing in a house deemed 95% damaged. It is practically unlivable. Their home. But they are still waiting on federal support to move to either a temporary or a long-term housing solution. Imagine that, waking up every day in a home that is 95% damaged. And as they navigate the stress and trauma of this turmoil, the father continues showing up to work. He goes to work every day in order to provide for his family and then returns to their damaged home waiting on us to show up to work and get the job done.”

“If we expect hardworking Georgians to do their job in the midst of disaster, they should expect us to do ours. It is reasonable service. It is the least we can do.”

“The disaster assistance proposal before us would deliver a lifesaver for so many families, providing over twenty billion dollars to help farmers address crop and orchard losses, more than six hundred million dollars to help them rehabilitate damaged land, three hundred and seventy five million to support rural communities with housing, power, water, health care, and more — and forty billion dollars for FEMA’s disaster relief fund, the primary source of federal assistance for Georgians impacted by Hurricane Helene.”

“There’s also critical funding to fix our damaged roads and highways, support our small businesses harmed by the storms and invest in public water and sewer system upgrades.”

“The only question is, what are we waiting for? There’s no time for games, no time for delay, no time for partisanship or politics. We must center the human beings, members of our families, who are impacted by our policy, and the time to act is now.”

“We must approve this additional funding with bipartisan and bicameral support, and I will continue to do all I can until we get this done, and every dollar we allocate gets to the taxpayers — after all, this is the taxpayers’ money — and hardworking families trying to pick up the pieces of their lives.

“This is the work we must do, and it cannot happen soon enough.”

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