The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Biden tours state to survey damage, push vaccinations
President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, arrived in Texas on Friday to survey damage caused by severe winter weather and to encourage people to get coronavirus vaccine.
The brutal winter weather across the South over Valentine’s Day weekend battered multiple states, with Texas bearing the brunt of unseasonably frigid conditions that caused widespread power outages and frozen pipes that burst and flooded homes. Millions of residents lost heat and running water.
At least 40 people in Texas died as a result of the storm and, although the weather has returned to more normal temperatures, more than 1 million residents are still under orders to boil water before drinking it.
“The president has made very clear to us that in crises like this, it is our duty to organize prompt and competent federal support to American citizens, and we have to ensure that bureaucracy and politics do not stand in the way,” said Homeland Security Adviser Liz Sherwood-randall, who accompanied the Bidens to Houston.
Biden planned to meet with local leaders to discuss the storm, relief efforts and progress toward recovery and to visit a food bank and meet volunteers. He was accompanied by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
While in Houston, the Democratic president also planned to visit a mass coronavirus vaccination center at NRG Stadium that is run by the federal government.
The post-storm debate in Texas has centered on the state maintaining its electrical grid and its lack of storm preparation, including weatherization of infrastructure.
Biden has declared a major disaster in Texas and asked federal agencies to identify additional resources to aid the recovery. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has sent emergency generators, bottled water, ready-to-eat meals and blankets.
Galveston County Judge Mark Henry said in an interview he didn’t know what more the federal government could do to help because the failures were at the state level. But Henry, a Republican who is the highest-ranking county official in the suburban Houston county, said if Biden “thinks it’s important to visit, then come on down.”
Biden wanted to make the trip last week, but said at the time that he held back because he didn’t want his presence and entourage to detract from the recovery effort.