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How do you do? Ladies and gentlemen, we in Florida are certainly well aware of the great destruction that occurred by reason of the path of Hurricane Donna. Probably never in our history have we had a hurricane which has left so much damage to us. But fortunately, there was not a great loss of life just as soon as the hurricane was over, of course, all the various agencies went into work in order to try to recoup and recover from the great blow that struck us here in Washington.

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We've called on all the federal agencies that are able to give us any help. And I would like to acquaint you with some of these agencies and the men who are in charge of the help going to Florida, trying to help us get back on our feet.

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I'd first like to introduce Admiral Egg Ward, who's an operations officer over the Navy Department but who actually is in charge of the Navy's efforts to help us in Florida. Admit it's a pleasure to have you here with us. And would you tell us what the Navy has been doing?

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Thank you, sir. As you know, sir, the hurricane started here and in the keys, uh, and passed through the state re entering the Atlantic in this area. Uh, about one o'clock on the morning of the 10th Donner Pass, long key by five oclock. By dawn, the forces in Key West had started vehicles into the disaster area.

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Uh, recent trucks, automobiles, bulldozers repair equipment into this disaster area. Now I have to let me ask you this question. How short were the people there of food and water? How much were they disrupted in their ordinary supply of these very important items? They had no water and rebel food.

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They were completely disrupted. What happened to the water line, which had come down from Homestead? It was broken in several places. That Senator. Now, are any of those people today suffering from the lack of food or water? No. Uh, our horses were able to serve meals in the first day.

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We had 1800 hot meals served from the field kitchens, which was set up. We sent in doctors with their equipment and provided all necessary first aid. Let me ask you this. I had some calls from Sheriff John Spotswood of Monroe County to the effect that he wanted some antibiotics and medicine in there, and he was greatly worried about an epidemic or a plague breaking out.

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What are the chances of that having been done, or what are the chances of of heading that off? Uh, sufficient action has been taken. Sheriff Spotswood, with our naval base commander, flew over the key. The disaster area where? And check to see that they were adequate doctors and Corman and vaccines.

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And this was all taken care of so that we believe that there is no no danger of any epidemic. The Navy is still standing by to help, if need be. That's correct. Thank you very much, Admiral. Next, I'd like to call on the Army engineers who have the responsibility, of course, keeping that pipe, that water pipeline operating as well as some of the bridges.

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Uh, Colonel Walter, labor of the Army engineers. Colonel, first, I want to thank you on behalf of the people of Florida for what you've been doing, and more specifically, tell us exactly what has been done and what you can do in the future. Senator, we have two army engineer companies now working in the keys, repairing the brakes on the causeway.

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And I just received word before coming to the program that a bridge 125 ft long was completed last night, opening traffic in that area. These companies were flown from their home stations at Fort Bragg and Fort Camel to the disaster area and want to work immediately.

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They're using Bailey bridging, such as we used in the combat zone and is shown on this picture. You know, the combat zone is a place where you have to move fast and they deal with the unexpected. And that was the case in the keys. As of this particular broadcast, can you now travel from one end of the keys to the other?

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I do not have confirmation of that, Senator. I do know that in the area 80 miles north of Key West, we have repaired the break and traffic is passing in that area. What about the let's go up into the south end of the state proper? What?

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What what was the case with respect to range and the flood possibilities up in that area? Well, the hurricane brought very heavy flooding in the all of the areas that have passed through the central and Southern Florida flood control project, although not completed, did a great job in reducing the flood damages.

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For example, at Lake Okeechobee, the flood tide, the wind tide was fully contained within the levee that's been built around that lake, and some will remember in 1928 to 2000 people were drowned because that lake went out of bounds during Hurricane. I remember in 1947 when it also went out of bounds and some other lives were lost.

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So I'm delighted that that flood control project that we battled so hard for each year you people build is turning out to be as useful as we'd hoped it would be. What were the flood conditions in the in the middle part of the state? Well, there was heavy flooding along the West Coast where the state the hurricane, passed up through Fort Myers.

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In that area, there was some flooding up around the Tampa area, and of course there was flooding on the East Coast because, as you know, the state has had an extremely wet year, right, and there was a lot of water in that area, before the hurricane ever came.

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But you and your group are standing by to do whatever necessary to stop flood conditions and to prevent floods from getting out of hand signs. Yes, sir, we are. You've already done it. Well, thank you very much, Colonel, for your statements. And now I'd like to turn to Mr Theodore Perkins, who is the administrator and the Small Business Administration in charge of disaster loans.

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And we'll get more specifically down to the areas where you can be helpful to the people of our state who have suffered this great damage. Would you tell us what it is exactly you can do? Thank you, Senator. Our administrator, I do not have to be.

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The administrator has declared 27 counties in Florida as disaster areas. This makes eligible any victim of the disaster to apply for financial assistance from us in the form of a loan. We do not have grant money. Our loans are expected to be repaid. Anybody is eligible and individual a business enterprise or church or hospital.

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Anyone who has suffered physical damage and that the proceeds of our loans can be used to replace any property that has been lost any tangible property, such as an individual with his home. If the entire house is gone, we will lend the money to rebuild the entire home.

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If his furniture only is gone, or both house and furniture, we lend him money for both purposes. If it's a business enterprise, we will replace their buildings, their machinery and equipment or their inventory, whatever they suffer as a loss. Now these loans are made at a low 3% interest great established by Congress, and maturity is a maximum of 20 years.

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We do expect, however, that those who have the ability and the earning power to repay sooner will do so, and we set up the maturity on an individual basis. Accordingly, the loans are expected to be repaid if it's a business enterprise. We asked them to furnish us with their profit and loss operations for the past several years so that we can to ascertain whether, in our opinion, they can repay.

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If it's an individual, it will be based on his earning. Let me ask you, just one question right there. How do these people go about making applications for loans? They should apply to our nearest field office. We contemplate opening an office in marathon. As soon as we can get in there today, we are opening an office in Fort Myers.

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We have a full time branch office in Miami. Well, that's very helpful. Thank you very much, Mr Perkins, with those assertions, and I'm certain that there will be many people in Florida who have had their business destroyed and their homes blown down. Who will be conducting you right away?

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Thank you very much. Another federal agency which has been very helpful in this particular crisis has been the harm Farmers Home Administration. Mr. Malcolm Holiday Junior. Mr. Holliday. Junior. We're delighted to have you, sir. Would you tell us in what areas you can be of assistance to us?

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Thank you, Senator. As you know, the farmers of the Department of Agriculture has authority to make loans, disaster areas to help farmers to reestablish their operations. We operate under instructions from the Secretary of Agriculture, Mr Benson, to move properly into these areas. And that we did.

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Can I stop you right there and ask you now, can you help any farmer all over Florida or only these farmers that are in the counties which have been designate only those counties which have been designated. How many counties in Florida have been designated as disaster areas in so far as the Farm Home Administration is concerned?

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As of this time, 30 to 32 were designated on last Monday, three days after the Donner Pass through your state. Now what is the rule of eligibility? How does the farmer to know whether or not he's eligible to make some requests for it to you? Well, the eligibility rules are very simple.

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We can finance normal forming operations. We cannot make loans for the purpose of expanding present operations are for starting movements, but where loss has been occurred incurred in disaster, the farmer can make application through our county officers, 22 of them in the state of Florida. I'm sure Mr Shadow Car, state director of Games for, will make arrangements for other officers to be opened if necessary.

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Uh, there must be engaged primarily in funding have suitable experience, ability to repay their loans, loans. Um, I must also not be able to secure credit on reasonable terms while the sources the little repayment to set up on the basis of their ability to repay. That's fine.

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But they do have to establish that they have lost this farm crop or their farm production has been damaged by the storm or the facilities with which they farm or the facility which they farm. All right, well, thank you very much. And I'm certain a lot of our farmers will be getting in touch with you.

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And now I'd like to call on Mr Blueberry of the Civil Defense Administration, who, as I understand it, sort of coordinating much of all much of these federal agencies activities in our state now. So would you tell us exactly what it is that you can do?

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Senator, we do have the job of coordinating this entire effort by the federal government, including the activities that you've heard about here so far this morning. But in addition to this coordination effort, uh, there is the matter of the 8 75 Presidents Disaster Fund, which I'm sure you're familiar.

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Uh, about that. Governor Collins has requested that a major disaster be declared in Florida. The President has declared it. We can now, after a survey of the damage, negotiate with the governor as to the amounts of money that might be necessary to put into his hands in the hands of the communities so that they can do the the disaster job that they are not able to do with their own facility.

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Let me ask you a question. Right there is this money designed to be used mostly by cities or counties and things of that character in the nation of sanitation operations and things of that nature and how much money is available? Well, that's exactly the purpose of it.

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Senator is not for the relief of individuals but for the relief of government to get them back in business, to get the debris off the streets. To get the schools running. To get the public utilities, the hospital is going to do anything they need to protect help and property, for that matter.

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Uh, the amount of money in the fund is probably far from adequate for the purpose, but we can always circumvent that by borrowing from here and there until Congress gets back again. These things never happened When Congress is in town, it seems usually we keep about $25 million in this fund.

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It's lower than that at the moment, but we're not worried about that. What needs to be done will be done. I expect that we will probably be making a recommendation to the president of the next day or two as to an initial allocation. So that these jobs do you have a man, as I understand it down there in Florida now, making some assessment as to how much money you think will be needed about our entire regional staff out of Thomasville.

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Georgia has been in Miami since before the hurricane actually struck. And it was only yesterday that they could go with Governor Collins and start to make some realistic appraisal of the situation. Thank you very much, Mr Barry, for these remarks. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for looking in.

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It has been quite a disaster, but believe me, we're all anxious to be of help. And every federal agency is doing its part to reconstruct, flawed. Thank you for looking at