potential damage from natural disasters mount. In short, as our country progresses, the possibility of greater losses through floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes increases.

This bill extends the benefits of Federal assistance to those who suffer most acutely from natural disasters: the individual farmers, homeowner, and small businessman. Under existing plans, when a section is designated a disaster area by the President, small businesses are permitted to apply to the Small Business Administration for financial assistance in the form of inexpensive loans.

Unfortunately, this does not always bring about the desired solution. The present program is inflexible at best. Moreover, individual homeowners and small farmers are unable to take advantage of any program for Federal assistance.

Under the provisions of this bill, those devastated by a natural disaster are able to refinance mortgages which are not insured or guaranteed by any Federal agency. These mortgages will have a maturity of up to 40 years and the Small Business Administration is authorized to suspend payments of principal and interest for a period of up to 5 years where extreme hardship might result from immediate demands on the mortgagees.

Another striking provision of this bill is the assistance furnished to the victims of disaster areas. When a family is routed from their home by the elements they no longer need worry over where they may find shelter while the extent of their damage is assessed. Upon a finding by the President that a dwelling accommodation has become uninhabitable due to a major disaster, and undue hardship will ensue if action is not taken, victims will be provided with accommodations until they are able to secure adequate facilities.

The great attribute of this legislation lies in its flexibility. The programs are capable of being administered as the local need dictates.

Victims of disaster areas need not suffer because their particular situation does not fit into an existing program. I suggest that we consider this legislation with dispatch so that we do not have to sit back and assess the damage of another area of the country and cite further examples of the need for such legislation. It is my hope that this bill becomes law before the waters recede from another disaster area.

STATEMENT OF HON. J. EDWARD ROUSH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF INDIANA

Mr. Chairman. members of the committee, I wish to express my appreciation for this opportunity to present this brief statement on the need for an updating of the Federal disaster assistance program.

The manner and the degree in which nature's unleashed forces can wreak havoc and tragedy on a widespread scale in the space of but a few minutes was visibly impressed upon me on April 11 of this year.

It was on that day a series of tornadoes ripped and ravaged the countryside and many urban areas of Indiana. North central Indiana, the section hit hardest by these winds of unbelievable force, is my own congressional district.

There is no need for me to go into detail regarding this disaster. The chairman is well acquainted with the physical scene as it appeared in the wake of the storms. He also is well acquainted with the efforts made to expedite relief in the stricken areas because he played an important part in these efforts.

My main purpose in appearing is to call the committee's attention to one important omission in our present Federal disaster relief efforts. It was best. expressed by the mayor of one of the cities in my district.

He was impressed at the speed with which the various Federal agencies appeared on the scene and began taking steps to literally pick up the pieces. He was impressed at the programs available to the various local government units to assist them in returning to normal.

He stood in the ruins of a residential area in his city as he made these observations. He felt called upon to make one more observation and it was this: "But we still have a void in assisting people."

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I urge you as strongly as I can to include these words in the criteria of your efforts to make our Federal disaster assistance program more effective.

Consider what can and must be done for the individual whose life savings are wrapped up in a home now destroyed or who is burdened by a mortgage on a home now destroyed, and whose furniture and clothing, if any are left, are rendered unfit for further use.

It is my understanding there are provisions in the legislation now under study by this committee aimed at filling this void. I am in full accord with these provisions to establish a disaster fund for non-Federal-insured loans. I support the provisions in which the initiative and implementation of such a fund rests with the individual States. I support the proposal by which 75 percent of these funds would be provided by the Federal Government.

And if the committee action results in the inclusion of additional provisions which would enhance the Federal Government's efforts to assist the individual I shall support these as well. We must fill this void.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BRADEMAS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF INDIANA

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my name is John Brademas. As the Representative in Congress of one of the districts, the Third Indiana District, which has suffered most from one of the several recent natural disasters, I appreciate the opportunity to present this statement in support of the legislation you are now considering in this Senate committee and which I have introduced in the House of Representatives.

On April 11, 1965-last Palm Sunday-a devastating series of tornadoes tore through northern Indiana, leaving death and destruction in their wake. The loss to my district alone, with 54 dead, 242 injured, and property damage in the millions of dollars, was catastrophic. Hardest hit was the little unincorporated community of Dunlap, near Elkhart, where the desolation in some places was total and the individual suffering was and remains beyond total measurement or belief.

Three days after the holocaust, President Johnson, my colleagues, Senators Vance Hartke and Birch Bayh, Indiana Gov. Roger Branigin, Buford Ellington, Director of the Office of Emergency Planning, and I visited the stricken area. The crippling effects of the storm were overwhelming. The evidence of personal and community tragedy, on all sides, stunned and moved us all.

We were surrounded by the remnants of what had previously been clean suburban homes in neat subdivisions. Dunlap was a battlefield of broken boards, dirt, shattered glass, splintered furniture, and fragmented household goods. Neat rows of mobile housing units had been reduced to lifeless rubble.

Entire families were killed; others were deprived of one or more of their members. Hospitals were filled to capacity. The human loss was the worst of any natural disaster in memory.

We bear witness to all of this and more.

The people of my district deeply appreciated the President's personal visit. His presence brought home to the people of the Third Congressional District. and I am certain to all of the valiant people of the Midwest, that America shared their plight and stood ready to assist them.

For the most part the aid of the local, State, and Federal governments and of many private organizations and citizens to the wracked locale came quickly and effectively. Medicines, foodstuffs, provisions of all kinds, and temporary shelters were provided as the President, at the request of the State, declared the territory a "disaster area." However, necessary and comforting as these immediate short-term measures were, it soon became clear that Federal machinery required to give meaningful long-term resource therapy to the stricken individual or family either did not exist or fell far short of what was required. Economic aid in the forms of loan adjustment or mortgage assuasion came, if at all, too little and too late. The best available was just not enough.

We have found, to our dismay, in Indiana, as have other unfortunate communities, which have been victims of major disasters, that, notwithstanding the impressive battery of general Federal disaster relief relating to public property losses, as the people go courageously about the trial of rebuilding their homes, farms, businesses, and lives, little or no direct assistance is available to them. Our experience, and that of other hapless citizens in Alaska, Iowa, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Missouri, Washington, Idaho, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Colo

rado, has made it clear that new legislation is required aimed at providing proper financial help for people who lose everything except their obligations in tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, tidal waves, and earthquakes. Our present knowledge of meteorology may limit what we can do to influence the weather, but it does not confine our compassion for those who have been damaged nor our responsibility to assist those whose lives have been devastated.

It is imperative that we act with dispatch. For some, such as farmers, help must come now or it shall be too late to revive their operations. There are many who desperately watch our actions and await our assistance. While we meditate, disaster, and its resulting toll in suffering, hovers in the wings. It would be unconscionable if another tragedy should find us unprepared.

The Nation can wait no longer. We, in Congress, must take the initiative. We must establish continuing authority to enable the executive agencies to deal adequately with the multitude of problems which follow every disaster.

It is within our power to mitigate the economic hardship which has been thrust upon some members of our community by forces beyond their control. Therefore, I strongly urge the passage of S. 1861. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS H. KUCHEL, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF

CALIFORNIA

Each year the forces of nature cause hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of damage. Several times in the last decade, parts of my home State of California have been ravaged by floods during the Christmas holiday season, and we are all well aware that such misfortune is not the unique burden of any particular region. The destructive forces of nature are unloosed, as flood and earthquake in the Far West, tornado and blizzard inthe Midwest, and hurricane in the East; and with each such disaster, there follows a long and difficult period of rebuilding.

In the past, these natural disasters have been met by stopgap measures created either by Executive order or piecemeal emergency legislative enactments. I believe that the experiences of the past winter and spring have shown that this is not sufficient. There is a pressing need for some kind of permanent machinery for coping with natural disasters and their victims.

Such disaster situations must be attacked on at least four broad fronts. Of course, the primary concern is always the care and sheltering of the natural disaster victims; but with this done, the task is still far from complete. The long and difficult job of reconstruction and rehabilitation of the physical and financial structure of the victimized community still remains. This involves at least three areas, refinancing of mortgages and loans, reconstruction of public and private buildings and facilities, and rehabilitation of educational facilities. In short, what is needed is a continuing authorization to carry out such functions in the form of a natural disaster act.

With this four-pronged approach in mind, Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, myself, and several others have cosponsored S. 1861, a bill to provide the permanent machinery necessary to effectively rehabilitate communities victimized by the rampaging forces of nature.

The bill provides for a comprehensive and permanent rehabilitation operation administered by the President of the United States and the heads of the executive departments, the primary purpose of which is to provide speedy and effective relief to the communities of major disaster areas. In my opinion, this bill effectively provides for both immediate aid to the victims of the disaster and long-term reconstruction and refinancing of both private and public property destroyed by such a disaster.

I strongly believe that a time of emergency is not the time for uncertainty and delay. On the contrary, it is a time when certainty and efficiency are paramount considerations. S. 1861 can provide the permanent machinery necessary to insure swift and effective rescue and rehabilitation programs.