President Trump headed to Texas on Friday to survey the devastation from the July 4 flooding catastrophe as the death toll rose to at least 121 and questions swirl over glaring failures in the disaster preparedness plans.
As the commander-in-chief and First Lady Melania Trump get a firsthand look at the damage and recovery effort, Trump has focused on the unpredictability of the natural disaster, which has killed at least 121 people, and has praised Republican state and local officials who have so far directed the response.
“Nobody ever saw a thing like this coming,” Trump told NBC News Thursday night. ”This is a once-in-every-200-year deal.”
AP Photo/Gerald Herbert
Kerrville residents Edgar Rojas, second from left, and his wife Perla, alongside daughters Emily, left, and Olivia, visit a memorial for flood victims along the Guadalupe River on Thursday in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
The Trumps plan to survey the damage by helicopter. With 160 missing, the death toll could still rise significantly in what will likely be the Lone Star State’s worst natural disaster in modern memory.
The White House says they’ll visit an emergency operations center to meet with first responders and relatives of flood victims. Trump will also get a briefing from officials. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Ted Cruz are joining the visit, with the GOP senators expected to fly to their state with Trump aboard Air Force One.
Trump hasn’t recently discussed his plan to dismantle the Federal Emergency Management Agency and shift disaster recovery management to the states.
It remains to be seen if FEMA will play a major role in the Texas flooding recovery. Large states like Texas, Florida and California are considered among the few with the resources and bandwidth to effectively cope with hurricanes, forest fires and other wide-ranging disasters.
Jim Vondruska/Getty Images
A rescue diver searches through debris in the Guadalupe River during a search and recovery mission in Ingram, Texas on Thursday. (Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)
While the focus is on FEMA at the federal level, local officials have come under mounting scrutiny over how much they were prepared and how quickly they acted.
Local and state officials reportedly rejected plans for a public warning system along the Guadalupe River where the floods struck before dawn on Independence Day, sweeping away summer camps, cars and vacationers in their path.
Kerr County, the hardest-hit locality, considered a siren system connected to water gauges along the flood-prone river, but rejected it due to the high cost.
Texas state officials now say they plan to propose a new warning system for the counties in the Hill Country region and lawmakers plan to debate the plan at a forthcoming special session of the legislature.
Camp Mystic, where dozens of children died in the flood, was granted approval to erect cabins for campers on the banks of the Guadalupe River despite being prone to periodic catastrophic flash flooding.
