Resilience has become a common word that has been thrown around for the past five years. This city and this state have endured “once in a lifetime” tragedies that seem to only be prophetic and continuous. It seems like it was yesterday that COVID struck and we entered a pandemic that kept us home and broke our economy and way of life. Now, just this past weekend, we survived a “once in a 1,000-year flood” that has upended thousands of lives to the likes we have only seen as a result of hurricanes after we just recovered from the pandemic.
This week, I have spent time checking in and following up with residents across the Senate district and this city. What I have found is that by the grace of God, we have not lost a life, but people’s livelihoods and life’s work have been destroyed in just one evening. One of these stops occurred near Villard Avenue where I, along with Governor Evers, County Executive Crowley, and Mayor Johnson, saw the remnants of a house whose basement walls caved in because of the floodwater pressure. In the evening, as the flood grew, a wife had to pull her husband from his slumber to ensure he wasn’t flushed away. In another home, a mother just renovated her basement to have additional bedrooms for her kids, but the floodwaters rose to the level of the basement entrance, a scene similar to the waters rising in the Titanic, as the water covered the entire basement level.
While all of the residents of these homes are now safe, the financial impact that is there is obscene. As a result of these floods, one of the common themes I am hearing is the complete destruction of not just their property inside the home but also their washers, dryers, and even their furnaces. With a few months away from winter, many families and homeowners will be in a financial sprint to prepare their homes. Not only that, the damage caused by the amount of water increases the risk of homes getting mold, which can create an additional public health crisis…