Virginia Senator Tim Kaine visits Pembroke to see Helene’s impact
GILES COUNTY, Va. (WFXR) – Virginia Senator Tim Kaine was in Giles County on Friday, checking out the damage in the town of Pembroke. It was his latest stop as he continued his tour of the most hard-hit parts of the Commonwealth.
Caboose Lane lies right next to the New River, which Helene pushed to a record-breaking crest level at 24 feet. That flooded the street, and the homes next to it. You can still see the mud where the water was. Senator Tim Kaine’s friend Frank has property that went almost underwater.
“Standing right here Friday evening so it almost looks the same as this, at 7 p.m. It was up to there by 2 a.m.” Frank said talking about the flooding on his house.
Kaine says that people like Frank are the reason he’s taking this tour of Virginia and a huge reason he says he’s fighting for hurricane relief in the commonwealth. In a time of partisan politics, Kaine says these relief discussions have both sides in agreement in D.C.
“You can have a horrible storm in Buchanan County, but if it’s just in Buchanan County, sometimes that doesn’t get the attention of Congress. When it affects Florida, Georgia- Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, and some other communities even beyond, ok now you’ve got a real critical mass of legislators, both parties, both houses, that are really wanting to get this done,” said Virginia Senator Tim Kaine.
Kaine has been showing his colleagues in Congress the pictures he’s taken during his tour, and they never knew how badly Virginia was hit. And in places like Pembroke, where flood waters filled houses, the community is all coming together to rebuild.
“Did it come up and go down really fast? In Damascus it dropped really fast?” said Kaine, in response, Tim Myers, a resident of Pembroke told Kaine about the flooding in his own home.
“Well it came up, I left here at like 4:45 and was here at daybreak and it was everywhere,” said Myers.
The county administrator says there will be 700 volunteers working to clean up in Giles County on Saturday, including 500 army cadets from Virginia Tech.
Kaine also said Congress may meet once more before the election to help with storm relief.