President Trump prepares for Hurricane Harvey, says feds are 'here to assist as needed'
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Conditions were deteriorating along Texas’s Gulf Coast on Friday as Hurricane Harvey strengthened and slowly moved toward the state. (Aug. 25)
AP
The White House tried to project an air of command and control Friday as President Trump faced his first major natural disaster with Hurricane Harvey bearing down on Texas.
“This is right up President Trump’s alley,” homeland security adviser Tom Bossert said from the White House briefing room. “When we go in and brief him on the preparations for this hurricane, he is acutely focused on making sure that … the American people in the storm’s path have what they need. His questions weren’t about geopolitical issues.”
Federal emergency response teams deployed to the Gulf Coast as the Category Three storm intensified, threatening high winds and severe flooding.
Bossert told the up to 6.4 million people potentially in the storm’s path in Texas and Louisiana to heed the warnings of local officials if they are told to evacuate.
“Now is not the time to lose faith in your government institutions,” Bossert said. “Those emergency managers giving you advice and making recommendations for you to evacuate are doing so with your best interests at heart.”
He said Trump would speak out about the storm when the time is appropriate. The White House also said he may make a trip to Texas next week.
Brock Long, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency since his confirmation in June, said FEMA has already put incident management teams and emergency supplies in place in Texas.Â
“We have search and rescue teams in the state. And we’re ready to go to support our state partners,” he said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared a state of emergency for 30 counties and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards issued a statewide declaration.
Just before noon, Trump said on Twitter that he had spoken with Abbott and Edwards and was “here to assist as needed.”
Trump left Washington on Friday afternoon for Camp David in Maryland for the weekend, but Bossert said he would have all the resources necessary to deal with the storm as needed. Bossert said Texas had already asked Trump to issue a disaster declaration that would free up more federal resources and funding, and he expected the president would grant it.
There are obvious political risks to Trump if the federal disaster response is poorly coordinated or late to arrive.
Iowa’s senior senator took to Twitter earlier Friday to urge Trump to ensure the response to Harvey did not damage his administration the way Hurricane Katrina brought ridicule on then-president George W. Bush in August 2005.
“Keep on top of Hurricane Harvey,” tweeted Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Don’t make same mistake Pres Bush made w Katrina.”
But Trump’s allies were using social media to lay the groundwork for blaming Democrats for any negative consequences.
“Democrats and lib media are no doubt hoping for Hurricane Harvey to make a direct hit on Texas so they can blame @realDonald Trump,” wrote Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke. “Bastards.” Clarke had been an advocate for Trump during the 2016 campaign season and was expected to take a senior position at the Department of Homeland Security until he withdrew his name in June.
While the political leadership at FEMA and the White House has changed with the new administration, many of the federal emergency management professionals being deployed are the same ones who responded to disasters under President Obama.
“These are not political appointees,” said Rafael Lemaitre, who was top spokesman for FEMA under Obama. “Their mandate is to check their egos and logos at the door and go in as part of one team responding. It’s not about the feds parachuting in, it’s about a joint effort.”
A post-Katrina law dictates that when an federal emergency is declared — one has not been declared yet for Harvey but could be issued before disaster strikes — the FEMA director reports directly to the president and not through the normal chain of command that puts the secretary of Homeland Security over FEMA. Right now, there is only an acting secretary since Trump tapped the previous secretary, John Kelly, to be his chief of staff.
Hurricane Harvey heads for Texas: What we know now
More: Hurricane Harvey could be a ‘flooding disaster’ as storm stalls over Texas
So far, the federal role has been to support state preparation while having emergency materials such as blankets, food, water and tarps in place.
“I think the president is allowing me to do my job, and we’ve been in constant contact with the White House,” said FEMA’s Long, who served as Alabama’s state emergency management director from 2008 to 2011, overseeing the state’s response to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf.
The federal Disaster Relief Fund, which can be tapped after a federal disaster declaration to pay for storm victim assistance and to reimburse the public sector for storm response and infrastructure repair, was projected on July 31 to have nearly $1.5 billion remaining for the rest of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Â
Whether that’s enough depends on the scale of the damage. Flooding in Louisiana last year has already cost $1.9 billion.
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Steve Elliott, left, and David Prater, right, secure a 40-foot shrimp boat at West End Marina on Aug. 24, 2017, in Galveston, Texas, as people prepare for Hurricane Harvey.Â
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