[Pages H8324-H8327]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING THE CRASH OF AMERICAN
AIRLINES FLIGHT 587

Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the
Speaker's table the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 272) expressing
the sense of Congress regarding the crash of American Airlines Flight
587, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the concurrent resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Ohio?
Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I do not
intend to object, and I ask the chairman of the subcommittee for an
explanation of the concurrent resolution.
Mr. LaTOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. COSTELLO. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. LaTOURETTE. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
Mr. Speaker, House Concurrent Resolution 272 expresses the sense of
the House of Representatives regarding the tragic crash of American
Airlines Flight 587.
Specifically, the resolution before the body sends its heartfelt
condolences to the families, friends, and loved ones of the victims of
that crash; sends its sympathies to the people of both the Dominican
Republic and the Dominican community of New York City; sends its
sympathies to the people of the Rockaways; and lastly, commends the
heroic action of the rescue workers, volunteers, and State and local
officials who responded to that crash scene.
Mr. Speaker, New York City has certainly suffered greatly since
September 11. I know everyone in this body was horrified on November 12
to see on our television screens the crash of American Airlines Flight
587.
But as one Member, I was heartened as I was watching television to
see that the news was reporting that the sponsor of this resolution,
the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner), who represents this portion
of New York City, was on the ground providing comfort and consolation
to those affected among his constituents in what was, at least in my
mind, one of the quickest responses by a Member of Congress that I have
had the honor of witnessing in 7 years.
I commend the gentleman for his foresight and wisdom in submitting
this resolution.
Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, continuing to reserve the right to object,
I thank the gentleman for his explanation and associate myself with his
remarks.
At this time, we extend our heartfelt sympathy and condolences to all
of the families, both on the flight and to those on the ground, who
lost loved ones in this terrible tragedy.
Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. COSTELLO. I yield to the gentleman from New York.
Mr. WEINER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me,
and I thank both of my colleagues for their kindness and the great
support this body has shown for those of us in New York since September
11.
Monsignor Martin Geraghty is the pastor of St. Francis deSales
Church, right down the block from where this horrible plane crash
occurred.
When he spoke recently to E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, he
said, ``You can deconstruct everything except suffering.''
We here today on the floor of the House do not seek to make sense of
this horrible incident that occurred, but we do seek to express our
great condolences to the 265 souls who were on board that plane, and to
those folks in Rockaway who have endured so very much.
Tomorrow there will be a funeral for the Concannons, a couple that
lived on East 131st Street. Sadly, it is not the first of funerals we
have had recently in reaction to horrible tragedies. St. Francis
deSales Church lost about 30 members of its parish, and as many as 20
of them firefighters lost on September 11.

[[Page H8325]]

When this horrible accident occurred on November 12, it could not, in
an odd way, have happened in a better place. If we are going to have a
first responder emergency that relies on the heroism of the people in
the community, Rockaway is the place we want to have it.
On November 12, just like on September 11, my neighbors, people in
Rockaway, retired firefighters, off-duty firefighters, police officers,
port authority policemen, EMTs, ran out of their homes.
I spoke to the head of Peninsula Hospital at the end of the day, that
horrible day, and I asked, how many injuries did you have? He said, we
had about 40 people come through our doors. I asked if they were
firefighters. He said just about every one of them were, but only a few
of them were on duty. People came in in their tee shirts and jeans
because they ran out of their houses to save their neighbors.
Mr. Speaker, this is a community that every day looks up to the
heavens, sometimes in praise of God Almighty, but sometimes to look at
the planes flying low overhead. I do not think anyone in our community
will ever look at those planes overhead the same way. This has been an
instance that has shaken us. As I have said before, it is almost as if
it was an aftershock to an earthquake that happened on September 11.
But as horrible as the incident was, it once again reminded us in New
York City and in our country of our common humanity. About as far away
as one can possibly get from Belle Harbor, Queens, is the community in
upper Manhattan in Washington Heights where many of the relatives of
many of those flying on this plane lived.
I must confess, there is not a great deal that the people in the
Dominican communities of Washington Heights have in common with the
Irish, Italian, and Jewish community of Rockaway, but on November 12,
we were reminded once again what is great about New York City and what
is great about our country.
We come here with great hopes, with great aspirations, and we find
them in New York City. When there are catastrophies like struck us on
September 11 and November 12, we are reminded again what we have in
common. What we have in common on this day is that families in
Washington Heights and in Rockaway are going to sit down to dinner with
an empty seat at the table. They are going to go to worship at Sunday
mass or this Saturday at shul and they are going to mourn for those
that have been lost in the last couple of months.

{time} 1515

We have a common bond in this country. It is that we are common in
the humanity that we have. So all of us in Rockaway send our sincere
condolences to those that lost their lives on this plane. We share with
those families that are still mourning September 11, and we join in
paying our great thanks to those Members of this House who have shown
such great support to New York City.
This is a time of national mourning, but it is a time of particular
mourning to those of us in New York City.
Mr. Speaker, I will include in the Record not only Mr. Dionne's
editorial about the Rockaways but two that were written by Michael Daly
of the Daily News which capture the essence of that great community.

[From the Washington Post, Nov. 13, 2001]

Unshakable Rockaway

(By E.J. Dionne, Jr.)

Our family has a love affair with a star-crossed little
neighborhood at the edge of New York City. In our house,
``Rockaway'' is a magic word.
Going to Rockaway means seeing grandma and aunts and uncles
and ``the cousins.'' A passel of kids of varying ages, the
cousins love playing baseball in the front yard, romping on
the beach just two blocks away, or exploring what's left of
the Fort Tilden gun emplacements that overlook the Atlantic
Ocean. The guns were put there to fight Nazis who many feared
would come across the sea during World War II. Fortunately,
the Nazis never came. Now the neighborhood faces troubles no
one ever imagined. The television screen Monday morning cut
suddenly to a city block we know and cherish. The flames were
ripping through houses and buildings two doors down from my
brother-in-law's home.
We knew my mother-in-law was in church at the time of the
crash--she goes to the 9 a.m. Mass every day at St. Francis
de Sales, about a block from where some of the plane
fragments hit. We learned, courtesy of a live interview with
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, that the church was okay. We
appreciated that, Mr. Mayor. Grandma finally got through to
us. She and the rest of the family were okay too.
Giuliani said he remembered the church because of the many
funerals and memorial services he had attended there since
Sept. 11. You see, Rockaway, and in particular the Belle
Harbor section that was struck on Monday, had already
suffered mightily in the World Trade Center disaster.
It's a neighborhood full of firefighters and upwardly
mobile, middle-class people, so many of whom had moved across
the Gil Hodges Bridge from working-class sections of
Brooklyn. Many found good jobs in the financial boom of the
1990's and worked in the trade center.
To call this neighborhood old-fashioned is both true and
misleading. True because the prevailing values really are
old-fashioned. Misleading because everyone is acutely aware
that it takes hard work and careful adjustment to keep old
values alive in the year 2001.
People in Belle Harbor don't much debate a word like
``communitarian.'' They don't have to. That's just what these
people are. I know from family experience that when a
neighbor gets sick, whole blocks mobilize instantly. Food
just shows up. Baby sitters suddenly materialize. The
invitation for a drink at the Harbor Light, a friendly
establishment smack in the path of Monday's devastation,
comes right on time. The word gets out fast. Nobody ever asks
questions. Nobody thinks about being paid back. Everybody
knows the same comfort will be available for them when they
need it.
Firefighters are as thick on the ground as steelworkers
once were in Pittsburgh or stockbrokers still are in Brooklyn
Heights. It's work that's often passed down from father to
son. Few professions fit the neighborhood better: a marriage
of family values with public service. Their attitude fits
too--tough on the outside, romantic on the inside.
The funny thing about this neighborhood is that for all the
ties of clan and ethnicity and faith--most of the neighbors
we know are Irish, with a sprinkling of Italians, and
Catholic--there is a kind of open welcome you don't run into
everywhere. Many people who don't know the place think this
is an attitude foreign to New York City. It isn't. My son
loves the neighborhood because he can hit the streets and
within five minutes be brought into a game of basketball or
beach baseball or whatever else is going on. He's not an
outsider. He's a kid, he's Brian's cousin, he's an honorary
neighbor.
That's why it was so painful to watch this neighborhood in
flames. Why so much trouble has come so fast to one small
place I cannot explain. All I know is that it's a place that
knows how to pull together and get dinner to the household
down the street where no one is home to cook. Maybe it goes
through hard times because it is so naturally gifted at
dealing with them.
A few weeks back, I was talking with Monsignor Martin
Geraghty, the pastor of St. Francis de Sales, about his
neighborhood's troubles. He's a deeply thoughtful man, a
neighborhood intellectual who never flaunts how smart he is.
He spoke of the academic trend to deconstruct, and thus
explain away, anything. ``You can deconstruct everything,''
he said, ``except suffering.'' I don't envy Monsignor
Geraghty's task of explaining to the good people of this
exceptional neighborhood why the inexplicable keeps happening
to them.
____

[From the New York Daily News Nov. 13, 2001]

Grief Returns to Street of Heroes

(By Michael Daly)

The routines of everyday life in Rockaway had continued
after her firefighter son perished at the World Trade Center,
and Gail Allen had just taken out the trash when a roaring
came from above.
``I heard noise and saw something falling from the sky and
saw black smoke everywhere,'' Allen recalled. ``I didn't know
what happened. I didn't know what was going to happen next.''
Allen dashed into her house, where her husband and six
others were sleeping.
``I just ran in screaming, `Get out!''' she said afterward.
She had responded just as her son, Firefighter Richard
Allen, would have.
``It must be in the blood,'' she said. ``Get everybody
safe. That was my immediate reaction.''
After everyone was safely down the block, she learned that
an airliner had crashed across from her house on Beach 130th
St. Many of her neighbors are cops and firefighters, and
their terrible losses at the World Trade Center did not keep
them from spilling out of their homes and racing headlong
into danger.
Other off-duty firefighters arrived from Brooklyn, the
Bronx, Manhattan and Long Island. Off-duty airline pilot Paul
Maracina could only marvel.
``People just ran out of their houses in their pajamas,
filling the streets, looking to help,'' Maracina said. ``It
was fantastic to see how fast people were working together.
The willingness of volunteers to leap into a raging inferno
to help other people.''
Maracina had heard the plane's noise become a roar just
before the crash. He knew hitting full throttle is standard
procedure in the event of an engine failure.

[[Page H8326]]

``This wasn't a terrorist attack. This was an engine
failure shadowed by Sept. 11,'' he suggested.
Around the corner, 8-year-old James Goldberg was pinning to
a tree a piece of cardboard on which he had crayoned a map of
the Rockaways and a message.
``NYPD, NYFD: Thank you very much.''
Goldberg announced he wants to become a firefighter when he
grows up.
``Because a lot of my friends' dads are,'' he said.
He then gave an exact count.
``Thirteen are firemen,'' he said.

Fresh Memories

Back on Beach 130th St., Gail Allen stood in the sunny
chill wearing a turnout coat that a firefighter had loaned
her. She clutched a photo of a beautiful young man in a fire
helmet.
``This is my son Richie Allen,'' she said. ``He lived in
Rockaway his whole life. He was 31. He went from lifeguard to
fireman. He was with Ladder 15, Engine 4. We had his memorial
on Friday.''
The memorial had been diagonally across the street at
St. Francis de Sales, one of 12 services held there for
World Trade Center victims. The pastor, Msgr. Martin
Geraghty, was now off blessing bodies from among the 260
people who had been on American Airlines Flight 587 and
however, many people had been killed on the ground in a
community that had already lost more than 70 at the Trade
Center.
Whatever yesterday's count was in Rockaway, Allen was all
but certain the dead would include neighbors who had become
only closer since Sept. 11.
``I'll know them. I'll know their kids. I'll be hugging
them,'' Allen said.
Allen walked down the street toward her daughter's house by
the beach. Somebody asked why there were so many firefighters
from Rockaway.
``They start out as lifeguards,'' she said. ``Saving lives,
it gets in their blood. It's inborn, I believe. It's what
they do.''
Her son had been a firefighter only since May, but she had
no doubt he had died following his true calling.
``It was a dream come true,'' she said.
She kept walking, the sun glinting off the ocean just ahead
where her son had rescued more than a few swimmers during his
years as a lifeguard. Four blocks behind her was the bay,
across which you can clearly see the New York skyline and the
startling absence of the two buildings where he had died
helping to save thousands.
The wind gusted and the gulls wheeled overhead and Allen
had difficulty grasping the monstrous unfairness of tragedy
again striking this slender peninsula of selflessness and
valor.
``It's hard to believe we're going to have other people in
the neighborhood going through it,'' she said. ``It's hard to
believe other mothers are going to hurt this way.''
A firefighter who is her husband's cousin came up and
hugged her, his face blackened by smoke and soot. She turned
to another firefighter who had rushed there without
protective gloves.
``I have an extra set of gloves at home if you need them,''
she said.
Then Allen went up into her daughter's house in the turnout
coat, the picture of the oldest of her six children in her
hand.
``We're still waiting for his remains to say goodbye,'' she
said.
She later would be heading into Manhattan to join the
mothers and wives of other fallen firefighters in urging city
officials to do all they can to recover those still lost
beyond the bay at Ground Zero.
``If it's not safe, make it safe. Go slower,'' she said.
She then would return to her narrow peninsula, which will
get through all its trials the Rockaway way.
``We'll get through it helping each other,'' she said.
____

[From the New York Daily News, Nov. 14, 2001]

Sorrow Binds a Special Place

(By Michael Daly)

Retired Firefighter Flip Mullen emerged from the 9 a.m.
Mass at St. Francis de Sales Church in a turnout coat frayed
to holiness by years of dashing into mortal peril.
Mullen had taken off his beautifully battered helmet as he
entered, and he donned it again as he returned to sun-
splashed Rockaway Beach Blvd.
He looked just as he had on Sept. 11, when word of the
World Trade Center attack caused him to leap out of a
decade's retirement and race to where 12 people in his parish
would die.
Mullen grabbed his gear again Monday, when a plane
nosedived three blocks from the church. Other past and
present firefighters came running just as fast as they had to
the twin towers.
Five more parishioners appeared to have met death from the
sky, along with the 260 poor souls on the plane. Mullen asked
aloud the question that he had carried into church.
``You wonder why bad things happen to good people,'' he
said.
The closeness of the knit in Rockaway was clear as he cited
his familial tie to one of the victims on the ground, 24-
year-old Christopher Lawler.
``His mom is my brother-in-law's kid sister,'' he said.
Mullen's next words made Lawler kin to us all. ``Just a
nice, caring person.''

mourning on sept. 11

Mullen strode off in his helmet and boots. The pastor,
Msgr. Martin Geraghty, appeared shortly afterward. He allowed
that even he was surprised by the faith of Rockaway when he
summoned people to prayer by ringing the church bells on the
evening of Sept. 11.
``I thought maybe 50 or 100 would come,'' he said. ``It was
500. The next day it was 1,000.''
Since then Geraghty had conducted 11 memorials for World
Trade Center victims.
``We thought we had kind of gone through one of the stages
of our grief,'' he said.
He and his parishioners would face this second tragedy just
as they had the earlier one.
``The first language of consolation is nonverbal,'' he
said. ``It's hugs.''
He had no doubt that the parish would meet even so dire a
test of its mettle.
``We're from Rockaway,'' he said. ``We have a little salt
from the ocean in us. We're salty.''
Nobody had more salt in him than young Richie Allen, who
had loved to swim and fish in the ocean just a block away. He
had written a poem titled simply, ``The Beach.''

My escape is the beach where I can be all alone and out of
reach.
I often sit in the open on the cold, hard rocks
My thoughts circling around the hands of a cloud
I stare into the ocean blue, and see all my fantasies, plans
and dreams come true.

This pure Rockaway boy's dream was to become a firefighter,
and he was one for just five months when he perished at
the Trade Center. Geraghty had presided over Allen's
memorial last Friday, and he used images of the sea in his
talk.
``Going against the tide of people coming out, helping
people who have lost sight of the shore,'' Geraghty recalled.
Allen's parents, Gail and Richard, were around the corner,
in front of their house on Beach 130th St. Their ocean-loving
son gave the father a fishing rod for Christmas. The father
was Rockaway born, but he had never been much of an angler.
``I think I'll take up fishing,'' the father now said.
A neighbor came up, looking stricken, saying she had just
seen some belongings that spilled out of the plane.
``Children's clothes,'' she said. ``Flip-flops. . . .''
Flip-flops in Rockaway, meaning kids and summer and life at
its best. The neighbor's voice broke, and she seemed near
tears, but one of her own youngsters ran up and she caught
herself.
She walked off, and another neighbor backed her car up the
block. The street ahead still was blocked by emergency
vehicles.
``We have some of the cockpit in the backyard and some
luggage, but we're okay,'' the neighbor said.

Horrible Piece of Catastrophe

Across the street, 4-year-old Kevin Otton, son of
Firefighter Dennis Otton, picked up something from a strip of
grass along a driveway. He went over and placed two small
pieces of the plane in his mother's hand. She tapped one bit
of blackened aluminum with a painted nail.
``It's scary when you think how huge an airplane is,''
Donna Blackburn-Otton said.
She then looked at her boy, who seemed already infused with
a firefighter's spirit.
``He wants to be right there in the midst of helping,'' she
said.
Back in front of the Allen house, Gail Allen showed a
visitor a photo her fallen son took from the beach. It
captured a dark sky clearing over the ocean as if cleaved by
light.
``Like the gates of heaven,'' the mother said.
She was certain Firefighter Richard Allen passed through
those gates and will watch over them all no matter what else
may befall Rockaway.
``Thank God we have an angel on the beach,'' she said.
____

[From the New York Daily News, Nov. 14, 2001]

The Ties That Bind the Rockaways

(By Alex Storozynski)

In the wake of the crash of American Flight 587 this week,
the nation has learned a lot about how special the Rockaways
are. As one who grew up there with sand in my shoes, I know
it's true. Let me tell you why.
First of all, there's something about having a roaring
ocean on one side and Jamaica Bay on the other that draws
people together. It makes you appreciate Mother Nature and
the fragility of human life.
During some storms, the ocean and bay have even met,
flooding the streets. The last time this happened was during
the great nor'easter of '91 that was immortalized in ``The
Perfect Storm.''
The isolation of this 10-mile-long, four-block-wide sand
bar also forces you to appreciate your neighbors.
When I was growing up, the house my family lived in was the
biggest on the block, so the neighborhood kids used to get
together in the backyard and driveway to hold bazaars to
raise money for muscular dystrophy.
Incredibly, one of the engines from Flight 587 landed in
the driveway of that childhood home, setting it, a boat and
the garage on fire. Luckily, the family living there escaped
with only cuts and bruises.

[[Page H8327]]

The isolation also gives residents a unique vision of the
city--literally, in some ways. As a kid looking out the
window from the top floor of my house, I could watch the twin
towers of the World Trade Center rise in the distance as they
were constructed during the '60s and early '70s. An awesome
sight--but that was New York City. We were in Rockaway.
People who visit Rockaway from ``the city'' are known as
DFD--Down for the Day. Generally, you have to keep your eyes
on DFDs because they often can't swim, and they don't always
take all their garbage with them when leaving the beach.
Rockaway teenagers often work as Parks Department employees
cleaning the beach, or they learn how to save others as
lifeguards. Many continue in the rescue tradition by becoming
cops and firefighters. The common experiences they have as
youngsters help form lifetime friendships.
Another intense experience that helps bind the good folks
of Rockaway together always has been the roar of the planes
on the flight path from Kennedy Airport. When the Concorde
started flying in the 1970s, teachers at local schools had to
stop classes for a minute or two whenever it passed over us
because it rattled windows and made lessons inaudible.
Many of my friends who heard the crash Monday said at first
they thought the sound was merely from the Concorde, which
recently resumed flights.
It ripped my heart apart when I realized that St. Francis
de Sales Church will be holding more funerals and memorials
for its neighbors. The parish has suffered incredible torment
lately because so many of its members were killed in the
terrorist attack on the WTC.
As the smoldering embers turn to ashes and the smell of jet
fuel is wafted away by the salty ocean air, I pray that
Rockaway will heal from this latest tragedy. While these days
I may technically be a DFD, I still have sand in my shoes.
Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr.
Weiner) for his leadership and for sponsoring this resolution.
Mr. Speaker, reserving my right to object, I yield to the gentleman
from New York (Mr. Serrano).
Mr. SERRANO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I want to join the gentleman from New York (Mr. Weiner)
in expressing our sense of loss and pain both to the community and the
Rockaways, as well as the community in the Dominican areas and
throughout the City of New York.
It is somewhat even sadder to know that a community that lost so many
people, then on another day saw so many people being lost right there
in their community. It is the kind of thing that you cannot explain;
and you do not try to ask why they happen, but they did happen.
The stories that are coming out about people who were on that flight,
the stories of the American immigration and the immigration to this
country. So many stories of people who came here, especially from the
Dominican Republic to find a new world, a new life. And so many were
involved in doing just that and were going back for whatever reason.
Interestingly enough, interestingly enough, I learned something after
this tragedy that I did not know before. And that was that a lot of
folks were going back to celebrate Thanksgiving in the Dominican
Republic. One would ask, why celebrate Thanksgiving in the Dominican
Republic; it is an American celebration. Well, these are families who
have been here so long and traveling back and forth to the point where
that celebration has now become part of many, if not all, communities
in the Dominican Republic.
So the same way that this weekend and this week we will be traveling
to be near loved ones, some folks come from the Dominican Republic to
celebrate Thanksgiving in New York and the United States, and some go
back to the Dominican Republic to celebrate Thanksgiving with all of
that which is ours, the trimmings of the turkey and the celebration
with a little touch of rice and beans and fried bananas that make who
we are as a country, that we take every tradition and add our personal
touch to it.
Then there are the other stories of, for instance, the woman in my
district who started to go to beauty culture school in the Dominican
Republic at the age of 12. Came to the United States and saved all of
her tips, saved all of her tips for 6, 7, 8 years with the intent some
day of owning her own place. And on 149th Street in the Bronx, she
owned her own place just 6 months ago. She was going back to her folks
to tell them the story of the success she had found in this new land of
opportunity and she never made it.
We also have the stories about people who came here, the man who came
here and became a citizen and was going home to pick up children who
now because of his citizenship could enter into the country and he was
lost. And so when we honor the memories of these folks, I think we have
to realize that this is a classic American story of people who came
here, of people who came here to make a better life for themselves, and
who either did or are in the process of doing it.
In closing, let me say as I started to say to the gentleman from New
York (Mr. Weiner) before, that there is something so dramatic and yet
so sad and yet so strong about the fact that in that community in the
Rockaways, which also has the tradition of immigrants coming here to
succeed, they became the final place for the death of so many of these
people. And these communities, who probably on a daily basis had
perhaps very little in common at times, certainly maybe in the
homeownership style or somewhat culturally; yet, at the end of it all,
the suffering of 60, 70 families in that community through the World
Trade Center and then the suffering of 260 through this airplane.
I am glad this resolution is up. We join today in expressing our
sympathy to all these families, and we just hope that we can now go on
and help the survivors to face this tragedy.
Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Otter). Is there objection to the
request of the gentleman from Ohio?
There was no objection.
The Clerk read the concurrent resolution, as follows:

H. Con. Res. 272

Whereas American Airlines Flight 587 en route from John F.
Kennedy Airport in Queens County, New York, to Santo Domingo,
Dominican Republic, crashed on the Rockaway Peninsula in
Queens County, New York, on November 12, 2001;
Whereas the crash resulted in a tragic loss of life
estimated at 265 individuals, including passengers, crew
members, and people on the ground;
Whereas New York City has strong cultural, familial, and
historic ties to the Dominican Republic;
Whereas many of the passengers of American Airlines Flight
587 were of Dominican origin and resided in the Washington
Heights community, a vibrant neighborhood which is an
integral part of our national cultural mosaic;
Whereas the Rockaway community has already suffered greatly
as a result of the attacks on the United States of September
11, 2001, as home to the highest concentration of
firefighters in New York City, many of whom lost their lives
at the World Trade Center;
Whereas many Rockaway residents ignored the risks and
rushed to the site of the plane crash in an effort to help;
Whereas the people of the Rockaway community have served as
an inspiration through their resilience in the face of
adversity and their faith in and practice of community; and
Whereas the professional emergency personnel on the ground
performed valiantly limiting the devastation of this tragedy:
Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That Congress--
(1) sends its heartfelt condolences to the families,
friends, and loved ones of the victims of the crash of
American Airlines Flight 587 on the Rockaway Peninsula in
Queens County, New York, on November 12, 2001;
(2) sends its sympathies to the people of the Dominican
Republic and to the Dominican community in New York City;
(3) sends its sympathies to the people of the Rockaway
community;
(4) commends the heroic actions of the rescue workers,
volunteers, and State and local officials who responded to
this tragic event with courage, determination, and skill; and
(5) directs the Clerk of the House of Representatives to
transmit an enrolled copy of this resolution to the President
of the Dominican Republic.

The concurrent resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

____________________