While advocating for a bill to bring relief funds to Hurricane Sandy victims, Sen. Harry Reid said that the October 2012 was worse than 2005’s Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf.
“When we had that devastating Katrina, we were there within days, taking care of Mississippi, Alabama and especially Louisiana, within days,” Reid, D-Nev., the Senate majority leader, said Jan. 4.
“We are now past two months with the people of New York, and the people of Louisiana were hurt, but nothing in comparison to the people of New England.”
The bill passed, sending $9.7 million to FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program to aid those impacted by Hurricane Sandy.
House Speaker John Boehner will reportedly be asking for more money on the first day of the legislative season, bringing the total to $60 billion, CBS News reports.
Just days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast states, then-President George W. Bush signed a $10.5 billion disaster aid bill, according to CNN.
"But as we did in Katrina, we should have acted almost immediately to meet the pain and suffering and loss of the citizens -- our fellow citizens, our fellow Americans --who were the victims of Sandy, but should not have been the victims of our delay," Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said.
According to the National Hurricane Center, Katrina led to the deaths of 1833 people and caused $108 billion in damage. Hurricane Sandy caused at least $20 billion in damage and killed 191 people.
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