Trump will visit the sites of the catastrophic floods in Texas on Friday
Trump announced he will inspect flood sites and boasted of his ties to Texas, a deeply Republican state
President Donald Trump will visit the site of the catastrophic floods in central Texas that claimed the lives of at least 120 people next Friday, July 11.
Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott praised the administration this week for the federal response to the disaster, even as the Trump administration made cuts to the nation's weather and climate agencies, and his officials continue to push to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
President Trump signed a federal disaster declaration at Abbott's request, allowing FEMA to deploy its own teams to support local rescue and recovery efforts as operations progress.
Fresh storms followed the initial flooding and made the effort particularly difficult, officials said.
Trump's visit will mark a full week after torrential rains pounded a swath of the west-central Texas Hill Country early on the morning of July 4. As of July 10, rescuers continued to search for more than 160 missing victims.
Among at least 120 people found dead as of Thursday afternoon, 95 were from Kerr County, the hardest-hit area, which includes the devastated Christian girls' camp, Camp Mystic, where authorities say they have not rescued anyone alive since the day of the flooding.
Abbott is expected to join Trump in Texas, where he will meet with first responders, be briefed by local elected officials, and meet with family members of those affected, according to a White House official.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who is also expected to accompany Trump to Texas, asserted this week that FEMA should be “restructured,” even as the agency responded to the flooding, and both Noem and Trump have insisted that disaster response should be handled by the states.
“We, as a federal government, "We don't manage these disasters. The states do. We step in and support them, and that's exactly what we did in this situation," Noem said.

