U.S. Senator David Vitter & U.S. Congressman Charles Boustany Issue Statements On Tenth Anniversary of Hurricane Rita

Ten years ago - on September 24 - Hurricane Rita followed the devastation of Hurricane Katrina with some havoc of its own, making landfall in southwest Louisiana as opposed to southeast Louisiana for Katrina. In addition to slamming southwest Louisiana, Rita re-flooded parts of New Orleans that had been impacted by Katrina not quite a month before.

Of Rita, U.S. Senator David Vitter had this to say:

We in Louisiana are survivors, and as we remember the devastation of Hurricane Rita - just weeks after Hurricane Katrina - we also see all the progress made in the last ten years. It is our shared struggles, heartache, and history that have brought Louisianians together, and as we continue to work together and face the many challenges threatening our state, I know that Louisiana's future is certainly brighter than ever.

Vitter and U.S. Congressman Charles Boustany - as members of the Louisiana delegation - were able to secure necessary recovery assistance of more than $1 billion.

Of Rita, Boustany had this to say:

The storm flattened entire communities, caused severe flooding across Southwest Louisiana, and displaced thousands of families from their homes. It may not have generated the wall-to-wall television coverage or national media attention of Hurricane Katrina, but its effect was just as real and just as damaging to our state's spirit...In the aftermath of such catastrophic damage, it would have been easy to give up. But in true Louisiana fashion, we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps. We came together to battle Rita Amnesia and win the assistance our state needed to get back on our feet. Today, Southwest Louisiana isn't just on the path to recovery; it's in the first stage of an historic economic boom.