Lily Janiak | Contributor
Four members of the Inland Empire’s congressional delegation sent a letter to President Joe Biden Tuesday to request additional federal disaster assistance for areas hit hard by Tropical Storm Hilary.
“As Members of Congress who represent Inland Southern California — the counties of Imperial, Riverside, and San Bernardino — we have witnessed the destruction that Tropical Storm Hilary had on our districts,” Representatives Raul Ruiz, Mark Takano, Norma Torres and Pete Aguilar wrote in the letter. “Inland Southern California has been hit with the most rainfall and strongest winds, with winds reaching as fast as 50 miles per hour.”
They added that the storm “resulted in historic levels of flooding that devastated the region, and Tropical Storm Hilary dropped more than half an average years’ worth of rain — 10.5 inches — in the Coachella, Imperial, and San Bernardino Valleys.”
Additional assistance was sought for response and recovery efforts as well as for getting federal resources to under-resourced and economically stressed areas, according to the representatives, who added that the storm left homes flooded, highways destroyed, trains derailed and small businesses damaged.
The representatives — who are all Democrats — wrote that though communities across their districts took swift action to prepare, various families were not able to protect their homes or recover from the devastation due to lack of resources.
Since infrastructure in the region wasn’t built to withstand natural disasters such as Tropical Storm Hilary, representatives urged Biden to send federal disaster assistance in compliance with all applicable laws, rules and regulations.
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