KERR COUNTY, Texas – President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are expected to visit the site of the deadly Texas Hill Country floods on Friday.
The flooding over the Fourth of July weekend has killed at least 120 people, including 96 in Kerr County. Of the dead in Kerr County, 36 are children.
Recommended Videos
The significant number of individuals still unaccounted for indicates that the death toll will increase significantly.
Trump and first lady Melania Trump are scheduled to visit parts of Texas devastated by flooding before retiring to the Trump Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
- 9:30 a.m. — Trump and the first lady will depart Washington for Kerrville, Texas
- Noon — Trump and the first lady will arrive in San Antonio and depart for Kerr County
- 2:10 p.m. — They will meet with first responders and local authorities
- 3:15 p.m. — The president and first lady will depart for Bedminster, New Jersey
Trump’s visit will be livestreamed on KSAT.com, KSAT 12 and KSAT Plus.
On Air Force One are Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, as well as Rep. Wesley Hunt, who hails from a Houston-area district.
Trump has pledged to provide whatever relief Texas needs to recover.
Ahead of his visit, Trump on Thursday approved a request from Gov. Greg Abbott to extend the major disaster declaration beyond Kerr County to eight additional counties, making them eligible for direct financial assistance to recover and rebuild.
Trump has compared what happened to the breach of a dam, saying that when you see one break, “it’s not a pretty sight and wipes out everything. And this is the kind of thing that built up so fast.”
Asked shortly after the disaster whether he still intended to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Trump said it wasn’t the right time to talk about it. Nor did he mention such plans during a nearly two-hour meeting with his cabinet on Tuesday.
The president instead opened the meeting by having Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem talk about her visit to Kerrville on Saturday.
Her voice breaking, she recounted leading the federal response, telling the meeting that she was overcome with emotion during the trip and had “kind of fallen apart.”
“Very emotional,” she said, “but also just so tragic.”
Noem said “Texas is strong” but insisted that, “we, as a federal government, don’t manage these disasters. The state does. We come in and support them, and that’s exactly what we did here in this situation.”
“We’re cutting through the paperwork of the old FEMA streamlining it, much like your vision of how FEMA should operate,” Noem said of Trump’s promise to scrap the agency.
Noem added, that Americans helping one another after such tragic events is proof that “God created us to take care of each other.”
A wall of water slammed into camps and homes along the edge of the Guadalupe River before daybreak Friday, pulling people out of their cabins, tents and trailers and dragging them for miles past floating tree trunks and cars. Some survivors were found clinging to trees.
Read also:
