Trump heads to Texas to survey flood damage after 120 killed and leave 160 missing

“This is a horrible thing,” Trump told reporters before leaving the White House. “Nobody can even believe it  that much water, that fast.” In an interview with NBC News, he called it a “once-in-every-200-year event.”

Kerr County officials said over 160 people remain missing. Among the victims were at least 36 children, many of them attending Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer retreat on the riverbank. Search teams have been working along the river to locate the missing, but no new survivors have been found since the flooding.

The area is known as “flash flood alley” due to its history of sudden, dangerous floods. Officials are now facing criticism for not having installed a flood warning system. According to Reuters, the county had failed to secure state funds for the project. Trump appeared to support installing alarms, saying, “After having seen this horrible event, I would imagine you’d put alarms up in some form.”

At a local gas station in Kerrville, someone had spray-painted a message blaming Trump’s recent budget for cutting emergency funding. The president’s large legislative bill, signed on 4 July, reduced federal spending while also lowering taxes.

Trump has previously suggested that FEMA’s work should be shifted to state and local authorities. When asked this week whether the agency will be abolished, he responded, “I’ll tell you some other time.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees FEMA, joined the president in Texas. She described her visit to Camp Mystic, where she saw “parents looking for their children, picking up their daughter’s stuffed animals out of the mud.”

Noem is co-chairing a FEMA review council to propose changes to how the agency works. “We as a federal government don’t manage these disasters. The state does,” she told Trump at a cabinet meeting.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did not confirm whether FEMA would be shut down. “The president wants to ensure American citizens always have what they need during times of need,” she said. “Whether that assistance comes from states or the federal government, that is a policy discussion that will continue.”

Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, also avoided directly answering. He said FEMA has enough money in reserve and that Trump has promised Texas “anything it needs, it will get.” He added, “We also want FEMA to be reformed. The president is going to continue to be asking tough questions of all of us agencies.”

The Texas legislature is expected to meet later this month to review the response and consider disaster relief funding. Meanwhile, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has asked a watchdog to investigate whether staffing cuts affected weather warnings during the flood.