US President Donald Trump has promised federal assistance to storm-ravaged parts of Texas, insisting the US Congress will act swiftly on a multibillion-dollar Hurricane Harvey recovery package as the government signaled current funds will be exhausted in the next few weeks.
“I think it’ll happen very quickly,” Trump said Monday. “It’ll go very fast.”
He said existing disaster balances of more than US$3 billion are sufficient for the immediate emergency, but promised his administration will send lawmakers a request for far more to help Texas rebuild from the record storm.
Photo: AP
“The real number, which will be many billions of dollars, will go through Congress,” Trump said at a White House news conference.
Trump was scheduled to visit Texas yesterday.
The slow-moving storm has brought catastrophic flooding to Texas, killed at least nine people, led to mass evacuations and paralyzed Houston, the fourth-most populous US city.
Photo: AP
It had also roiled energy markets and caused damage estimated to be in the billions of dollars, with rebuilding likely to last beyond Trump’s four-year term in office.
“My administration is coordinating closely with state and local authorities in Texas and Louisiana to save lives, and we thank our first responders and all of those involved in their efforts,” Trump on Monday told reporters at the White House.
Trump was scheduled to arrive in Corpus Christi, near where Harvey came ashore on Friday. He was to later go to the state capital, Austin, to meet officials, receive briefings and tour the emergency operation center, the White House said.
Flood damage in Texas from Harvey may equal that from Hurricane Katrina, one of the costliest natural disaster in US history, an insurance research group said on Sunday.
In Texas, thousands of National Guard troops, police officers, rescue workers and civilians raced in helicopters, boats and high-water trucks to rescue the thousands stranded in the flooding, which turned streets into rivers and caused chest-high water build-ups in scores of neighborhoods.
In Cypress, Texas, Kayla Harvey, 26, was monitoring Facebook, finding where people were stuck and organizing friends with boats to go out and help.
“This is just what we do for our community. We don’t wait for someone to come and help we just go out and do it,” she said.
Among the most recent fatalities from Harvey was a family of two adults and four children who were believed to have drowned after the van they were in was swept away by floodwaters in Houston, authorities said on Monday.
A man drowned on Monday night trying to swim across flooded Houston-area roads, the Houston Chronicle reported the Montgomery County Constable’s Office as saying.
Since coming ashore, Harvey has virtually stalled along the Texas coast, picking up warm water from the Gulf of Mexico and dumping rain from San Antonio to Louisiana.
The Houston metro area has suffered some of the worst precipitation, with certain areas expected to receive more than 127cm of rain in a week, more than it typically receives for a year.
US Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Brock Long estimated that 30,000 people would eventually be housed temporarily in shelters.
Houston and Dallas have set up shelters in convention centers and Austin was preparing to house as many as 7,000 evacuees.
Hundreds of Houston-area roads were blocked by high water. The city’s two main airports were shut as the floods turned runways into ponds and more than a quarter million customers were without power as of yesterday morning.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was