In reaction to criticism of his policies and federal response to the massive flooding that occurred on July 4 and left at least 121 people dead and over 150 others missing, US President Donald Trump traveled to central Texas.
Officials from the hardest-hit Kerr County in central Texas said that although the search is still ongoing, no survivors have been located since July 5, according to Xinhua news agency.
The search and rescue effort involved over 2,100 rescuers from 20 US states, local authorities, and other federal agencies.
After assessing the devastation on Friday, Trump said in Texas that the local, state, and federal agencies had done a “incredible job” in handling the flooding response, rescue, and recovery.
“We were merely doing a brief tour of the region. The destruction is unbelievable. One hundred-year-old trees were torn from the earth. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Trump remarked, “I’ve seen a lot of bad ones.”
At a roundtable, Trump remarked, “This has been incredible, really, the job you’ve all done,” “I’ve gone to some real bad ones; I’ve never seen anything like this.”
When a reporter asked Trump how he responded to people who questioned why there weren’t any warnings before the flooding, he said, “I don’t know who you are, but only a very evil person would ask a question like that.”
Later, Trump assailed Democrats who criticized his administration’s response and called for an inquiry. “All they want to do is criticize,” the president declared. “The public’s wise to it.”
Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, accompanied Trump in praising the federal response to the flooding in Texas as “swift and effective.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer questioned earlier this week whether the Trump administration’s staff reductions at the National Weather Service affected the agency’s ability to forecast heavy rainfall and issue flash flood advisories.
According to a CNN story on Wednesday, the Trump administration’s new budget approval criteria meant that search and rescue teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had not been authorized for deployment until over 72 hours after the flooding started.
“This would be an unmitigated, unforced disaster, and it would certainly exacerbate the toll of extreme weather events,” a group of House Democrats wrote in a letter to FEMA and the federal agency that oversees the National Weather Service on Wednesday, urging congressional hearings on their response to the flood.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump attacked California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and other local Democratic leaders for the California wildfires earlier this year, as well as the then-Biden administration’s response to a significant flooding incident that killed at least 103 people in September.
According to an early estimate from the US weather forecasting service AccuWeather, the flash floods that have affected at least 20 counties in central Texas would result in total damage and economic loss of $18 to $22 billion.
Read More
When PM Modi arrives in Brasilia for a state visit, the Indian diaspora greets him with open arms
Cuba’s incorporation of Ayurveda into its public health system is something that PM Modi values