WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell delivered the following remarks Wednesday on the Senate floor on the storm cleanup in Kentucky:



“Mr. President, the impact of Hurricane Ike has, as we all know, devastated part of the United States, including my home state of Kentucky. This past Sunday, 70 miles-per-hour winds blew through the state leaving thousands of people with damage or destroyed property.



“I can give you my own personal observation about it. My wife and I were out at lunch Sunday when the storm came through. Very high winds, as I just indicated, 70 mile-an-hour winds, which we're certainly not accustomed to in Louisville, Kentucky.



“Then we drove home and saw that one way to our house was blocked because a tree in our own yard had fallen across the road. We took another route around to try to get in the back of our house and another tree had fallen across the road. That was replicated across Louisville, Kentucky. The power in my own house is still out, just to personalize it, and still a huge number of houses in Louisville and in Northern Kentucky, which is across from Cincinnati.



“So this has had a severe impact, on a lot of people. The good news is that the hospitals and major facilities do have power. But as many as 170,000 homes all over Kentucky are, as I speak now, still without power. And schools in several counties remain closed as the cleanup continues.



“State and local officials are working as hard as they can to survey the destruction and to get help to anyone who needs it, and I expect the state will soon ask the federal government for disaster assistance, which, of course, I and others will strongly support.”



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