Donald Trump Lands in Texas to Assesses Damage from Hurricane Harvey

President Donald Trump landed in storm-brushed Corpus Christi, Texas, to see for himself some of the damage caused by Tropical Storm Harvey and demonstrate his personal commitment to a region still in the grips of a historic natural disaster.

Trump, who pushed aides to schedule a visit to Texas as early as possible after Harvey made landfall near Rockport, Texas, on Friday night as a Category 4 hurricane, initially considered touring San Antonio, which is outside the most hard-hit areas. But he settled on Corpus Christi because it was 30 miles away from the most severely affected parts of the Gulf Coast and it sustained relatively light damage from the initial impact of the storm.

"It's a real team, and we want to do it better than ever before," Trump said of the response effort during a meeting with officials from local, state and federal agencies in a Corpus Christi firehouse. "We want to be looked at in five years, in 10 years from now as, this is the way to do it."

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, sitting next to the president, sought to allay concerns about the situation at the convention centre in downtown Houston, where 9000 residents fleeing rising floodwaters have crammed into a makeshift shelter designed to accommodate 5000.

"This is not the Superdome," Abbott said, referring to the nightmarish conditions residents of New Orleans endured while seeking shelter at a sports arena after Hurricane Katrina 12 years ago.

"At the convention center, we are sustaining food", added the governor, who sat near the state's junior senator, Ted Cruz, who was briefly trapped by flooding in Houston on Monday. The people at the convention center have food and security, Abbott said.

"I have an incident management team inside the city of Houston," he said. "And more and more people are being moved to shelters to stabilise the situation."

"All eyes are on Houston, and so are mine," added Abbott, a political ally of Trump who has given the White House high marks for its storm response thus far.

After conferring with emergency management officials, the president, accompanied by Melania Trump, the first lady, planned to travel north to Austin, where he was to meet with other officials.

The president was also scheduled to meet with several members of Congress and with local elected officials and mayors. He had no plans to meet the mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner.

"Due to the weather and all of the circumstances, it's a little bit more fluid today than a normal travel day," Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, told reporters aboard Air Force One during a turbulent flight.

"The president wants to be very cautious about making sure that any activity doesn't disrupt any of the recovery efforts that are still ongoing, which is the reason for the locations we are going here today," she said. "As of right now, I don't know that we will be able to get to some of the really damaged areas."

Trump, his aides say, is eager to avoid the mistakes made by President George W. Bush in 2005, when he took a relatively hands-off approach to the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

Vice President Mike Pence and federal officials from the Department of Homeland Security have taken the lead on negotiating many of the details of the response, but Trump has taken pains to emphasize his involvement in the crisis.

"We are glad he's coming," said Ben Molina, a Corpus Christi councilman. "It's important that he sees the damage around the coast. I've never seen anything like it, and neither has anybody else."

The president Monday pledged to quickly pass an appropriations bill to deal with the massive damage to private property and public infrastructure. He said he would return to the region this weekend.

Trump left Washington on a rainy morning, boarding Air Force One with an entourage of aides that included John F. Kelly, his chief of staff; Marc Short, his legislative affairs director and his point man with elected officials in the region; and specialists from the Small Business Administration, who will assist local businesses with recovery loans.

Melania Trump boarded wearing a green jacket, slacks and stilettos — attire which was widely noted on social media. She emerged from the plane in Corpus Christi wearing a white jacket, a white baseball cap emblazoned with "FLOTUS" and white tennis shoes.

Donald Trump did not change clothes en route. He wore leather boots, khakis and a white collared shirt with a windbreaker bearing a presidential seal; his white baseball cap read "USA".

Source: The New York Times