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.
As of 6:20 p.m. Wednesday, 96 people, including 36 children, are confirmed dead in Kerr County, according to authorities.
Across Central Texas, floods over the Fourth of July weekend killed at least 118 people. The significant number of individuals still unaccounted for indicates that the death toll will increase significantly.
>> Kerr County tragedy already one of the deadliest floods in Texas history
Trump has pledged to provide whatever relief Texas needs to recover.
Details on his visit to Central Texas, including timing and location, are unknown at this time. This story will be updated when that information becomes available.
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.
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