» Trump stops in East Texas on storm damage tour.
President applauds response in Orange amid recovery effort
ORANGE – President Donald Trump’s stopover in East Texas was more rally than recovery following Hurricane Laura, just days after a dozen people died and hundreds of thousands lost power from the category 4 storm.
“The path was a little bit lucky,” Trump said, echoing earlier comments from state and local leaders when Texas dodged the brunt of Laura’s wreckage, which ravaged parts of Louisiana the president visited earlier in the day. He marveled at the storm’s power, a fury known all-too-well to Gulf Coast residents.
“You had trees ripped from the roots,” Trump said. “You had pine trees broken in half, and you don’t see that kind of power.”
Trump only saw Orange damage from the air or the motorcade, instead spending 90
minutes on the ground touring the Orange County Exposition Center where state police and county emergency management officials waited out the storm. The building, also the county’s emergency operations center built after damage following Hurricanes Rita and Ike, can resist winds of 250 mph.
“Wow, 250 mph,” Trump said. “That’s great.”
Rather than recite the damage, the president, Gov. Greg Abbot, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and other leaders spent most of Trump’s time lauding their swift response and readiness for the storm that didn’t quite pack the expected punch.
“I’ve been in this seat for 10 years, we have never had this fast a response,” state emergency management director Nim Kidd said.
The most significant damage this side of the border was in Orange County and concentrated in Orange city limits, near the Sabine River and north on Texas 87. High winds toppled trees which brought power lines down with them, while some metal and brick buildings buckled in the heavy storm.
Saturday, utility crews were fanned out in Orange erecting new poles to replace those splintered by the storm.
“We’ll be back in a few days, I hope,” John Samuelson said of his house which, like others in the vicinity, remains cut off. Samuelson, 77, and his wife are living in Beaumont with her brother.
At the peak of power outages, Abbott said 350,000 customers in Texas were without power. By Saturday afternoon, slightly more than two days after the winds died down, he said 120,000 remained in the dark. Of those evacuated by bus from the storm, 808 have returned.
Across Texas and Louisiana, Trump said emergency and recovery officials have delivered 400,000 liters of water and 250,000 meals to address needs in the community.
State officials cheered Trump’s fast approval of a disaster declaration in affected counties, while local officials cheered the cooperation and guidance they received from the state.
“We are getting good at something we don’t want to be good at,” Orange County Judge John Gothia said.
Officials also used Trump’s attention to tout planned protections along coastal Texas, namely a $4 billion levee spine system meant to expand local storm barriers into Jefferson and Orange counties. Cruz, a champion of the plans, called it critical to protect petrochemical interests and homes in East Texas. Three separate levee projects will create 25 new miles of coastal barriers with 30 gauges tied into the broader flood and surge control system.
“Collectively those projects will protect 100,000 people,” said Gen. Christopher
Beck, commander of the southwestern division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Approved projects by the Corps of Engineers also allow for studying of a protection system in the Houston area.
Trump expressed interest in the projects, but joked he wanted assurances of their effectiveness.
“It will work right. We are not going to build it and say ‘Oops it sprung a leak,’” he said.
Orange is friendly turf for Trump, who won with nearly 80 percent of the vote in 2016. All of Orange County’s elected officials are Republican. As a result the president felt free to veer into other political topics, criticizing the mayor of Portland, Ore., and the ongoing protests. Trump said if asked he would deploy the National Guard.
“We could clear out Portland in 45 minutes,” the president said.
Trump’s Orange visit, while welcomed, barely registered with some residents and workers focused on rebuilding the town.
“Are they gonna help fix my roof?” Tom Reynolds asked, standing in front of his home that took a hit from a tree. “I don’t mean any disrespect, but this doesn’t seem like the time to talk politics.”