(g) Roads, sewers, and related plant and equipment: Reconstruction_. Curbs and sidewalks. Yards and office buildings. Equipment (salvaging). Sewer reconstruction_. Total___. 5, 500 $200,000 2, 200 50,000 8,000 322, 200 200,000 30,000 20,000 20,000 50,000 560,000 (n) Parks and playgrounds: Huntingdon Ave. (baseball and 6 softball diamonds): (0) Naugatuck River Channel clearance and restoration_ (p) Health department, municipal abattoir_. (q) Dog pound_-- Total public property and facilities----- $25,000 60, 000 10,000 1,000 300 500 2,000 2,500 1,500 102, 800 1,500,000 5,000 18,000 3,301, 042 Mr. EDELSTEIN. There have been submitted for the record also statements or letters from Maurice Ferland, State senator from the 28th district; George Rivers, representative of the town of Killingly, Conn.; John A. Define, Jr., mayor of Danbury; and John N. Dempsey, mayor of Putnam. Senator LEHMAN. Without objection, they will be inserted in the record. (The statements referred to follow :) STATEMENT OF MAURICE FERLAND, STATE SENATOR, CONNECTICUT Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I come from a disaster area. I have witnessed the sad and discouraging scenes of burning industrial plants that we the people of Connecticut are so badly in need of. I have witnessed the partial and complete destruction of our small businesses. I have witnessed unbelievable hardship imposed by the disaster on our people who owned real and personal property. I will agree that many have been partially rehabilitated by the Red Cross and other organizations who have performed such a commendable piece of work, but the greater portion have received little or no help, due to the fact that they possessed assets. It is most unfortunate that flood insurance was not available to our people and industries at reasonable rates. I am overjoyed that you men from Washington are here today to hear from our good people on their opinions as pertains to flood insurance. I am not here today to recommend how flood insurance at reasonable rates should be brought about. I have confidence in you men and I know that you will make a detailed study of this matter and that you will come up with the very best solution for all the people in the United States. I firmly believe that along with flood insurance should go a good sound floodcontrol program. In my opinion everything humanly possible should be done to prevent floodwaters from raging at will. Then, if these raging waters overrun our best constructed flood-control dams, insurance would be present to cover the losses. STATEMENT OF GEORGE RIVERS, REPRESENTATIVE, CONNECTICUT GENERAL ASSEMBLY Mr. Chairman and members of this committee, I am State Representative George Rivers from the town of Killingly. I am going to be brief. I am very much concerned with disaster insurance at reasonable rates that will protect our people. I would also like to see flood control put into effect to protect the people in eastern Connecticut. The people of eastern Connecticut have suffered a tremendous blow and, if we are to survive we must have flood control. I know this committee has and will continue to work for a solution to this problem. Mr. WILLIAM F. MCKENNA, CITY OF DANBURY, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. MCKENNA: I am writing this letter to you so that you will place on the record of the Committee on Banking and Currency that the city of Danbury, through its common council, is unanimously in favor of Federal flood insurance. I am sorry that I did not get the opportunity to address the committee in Hartford, but I believe the story was well presented, and I think the committee is to be congratulated for its willingness to come to Connecticut and hear our pleas. I am certain I speak for all the mayors in western Connecticut when I say that our sincere hope is that some type of flood insurance will come out of the next session of Congress. I would urge this committee to do everything in its power to make this a reality. Sincerely, Mr. WILLIAM F. MCKENNA, Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C. JOHN A. DEFINE, Jr., Mayor of the City of Danbury. CITY OF PUTNAM, CONN., November 14, 1955. DEAR MR. MCKENNA: I am writing this letter to you so that you will place on the record of the Committee on Banking and Currency that the city of Putnam, through its common council, is unanimously in favor of Federal flood insurance. I was sorry that I did not get the opportunity to address the committee in Hartford, but I believe the story was well presented, and I think the committee is to be congratulated for its willingness to come to Connecticut and hear our pleas. I know I speak for all the mayors in eastern Connecticut when I say that our sincere hope is that some type of flood insurance will come out of the next session of Congress. I would urge this committee to do everything in its power to make this a reality. Sincerely, JOHN N. DEMPSEY, Mayor of the City of Putnam. Mr. EDELSTEIN. The Honorable Wallace Burke, chairman of the town council of Farmington. STATEMENT OF WALLACE BURKE, CHAIRMAN, TOWN COUNCIL, FARMINGTON, CONN. Mr. BURKE. My name is Wallace Burke. I come from Farmington, Conn., and I am chairman of the town council. Farmington is a little town. We number something less than 9,000. Senator LEHMAN. Is that where the girls' school is? Mr. BURKE. That is right. We number something less than 9,000. In one portion of our town, Unionville, we number less than 4,000. People have lived along that river for a couple of hundred years. Some of our buildings have been around for 150 years. If you go out there today you will see we have 127 houses less than we had on August 18. They are houses which for the most part in 1 area were 90 percent mortgage free. They are houses which people worked for for two generations. On August 20 those people became paupers. There was absolutely nothing for them. The only recourse they had was the Red Cross. There was no Federal help and no State help, and certainly the town could not provide any help. We have estimated the losses in taxes from the loss of those houses at $2,673,000. We hope that the legislature will reimburse us for the losses we suffered and for the tax rebates we must give. We must have that money because we spent it already for schools and other commitments. But as I understand the purpose of this committee, it is to ascertain whether or not the people favor disaster insurance. I do not think there is any question that they do. I imagine it is only the type. However, it would seem to me whatever type of insurance the Government decided to have, it should be cheap enough so that the little man I am talking about, with a little house along the river, can afford to pay it, and the little man with the bungalow on the hill can afford to pay it to get insurance against when the wind hits him. No one, no matter who he is, can escape the hand of God when it comes down, either a flood, fire, devastation, disease, or whatever it is. It seems to me disaster insurance is just one more step in the program which has been developed since 1932, to give the people more security in their living and security from poverty. Certainly nothing surprises people as quickly as a devastating flood or some other type of disaster. That is all I have to say, and I hope in the interests of our people in Farmington that legislation comes quickly, because not only were we destroyed on August 19 but again in October the floodwaters came up, and 2 weeks ago they were up again. We lost not only the houses but the land on which they sat, and we have no money with which to replace them. I do not suppose those people can be helped by this committee, but there are other people who will suffer the same type of loss, and I hope somewhere, somehow, and soon, we will have the protection we need, and we can only do it through insurance. Thank you. Senator BUSH. Mr. Chairman, I want to say that Mr. Burke certainly has not exaggerated the situation in Unionville. I venture to say if there was ever a correct and accurate appraisal made of our towns that have suffered damage, that this little town on a per capita basis will have been the greatest sufferer in the whole disaster. I was there shortly after the damage occurred, and the gentlaman has not in any way exaggerated the situation. It is just amazing. Mr. Burke, may I ask you one question? This is a little bit extraaneous, but I would like to know what you are going to do with that area where those 127 houses were destroyed? Are you going to let them go back and build, or what are you thinking about? Mr. BURKE. What we are trying to do is have an urban redevelopment plan. We have a redevelopment committee looking into it and we have developed a plan on that portion of Farmington Avenue where we lost 17 houses. It has gone from 160 to 360 feet wide. It is 30 feet deep. We hope to set it up as a common with a memorial for the policeman who was drowned. The other part we hope to make into parks. However, no town can live on parks and playgrounds. You have to have tax-income property. We hope to be able to get the State of Connecticut to swap some land that we have which is swampy and good for birds, for some good land that they have which we think is good for industry, and see if we can attract some to our town. Senator BUSH. Off the record. (Discussion off the record.) Senator BUSH. Thank you very much. Senator LEHMAN. I believe Mr. Roger Jones comes from Farming ton. Mr. BURKE. He comes from New Hartford. Senator LEHMAN. Is that near? Mr. BURKE. It is above us and north of us on the Farmington River. Senator LEHMAN. He appeared before the committee and was questioned about this proposal of disaster insurance. He testified as follows: Mr. JONES. Well, if we can make an educated guess as to what our coverage will be, I would think you could factor it very quickly. But from my own experience in traveling up and down-I happen to come from Connecticut, and I have been home since the flood, and we were in one of the worst-hit parts of the State-people I have known all my life are very much of two minds as to whether there would be any appeal in this kind of an insurance program to them, and these are people who lost their homes, lost their businesses. Do you think that is an accurate statement of the point of view of the people of your town? Mr. BURKE. I do not know what he says about his town. I know in my town the people want that type of protection, and they have got to have it, because a man should not go from a substantial citizen at 9 o'clock on the 18th and be a pauper on the 19th. Some protection must be given to him. Senator LEHMAN. I am going just a little bit afield now in the statement I am going to make, but you were talking about urban redevelopment. Mr. BURKE. Yes. Senator LEHMAN. Which, of course, has only an indirect connection with the flood insurance; but it is an important question, I think. I have heard a number of representatives of cities, towns, and villages talk about urban redevelopment. They now seem to be very hopeful it will help their situation. I think it would but I would merely add that I think if we are going to use urban redevelopment as any very substantial factor in this whole situation you have to help us to get more money in Congress for that purpose. Mr. BURKE. I do not think that the present law of itself can do the job. We have looked that law over and talked to your men from the renewal agency time and again. The law, as you know, was for slum clearance. We cannot go into any part of our town and say we have a slum, or that we have none. Those areas which have been devastated by the flood they say are vacant land and it does not |