Biden visits Houston to survey damage from Texas storm

HOUSTON — President Joe Biden visited Houston on Friday afternoon to survey the aftermath of last week’s winter storms and the statewide grid collapse that left millions of Texans without power and heat in sub-zero weather.

Gov. Greg Abbott, playing chaperone as the new president visits the state’s largest COVID-19 vaccination “super site,” is pressing for him to add more counties to the major disaster declaration issued a week ago as Texas began to recover from a disaster both natural and manmade. On Friday morning, 18 more counties were added to the declaration by the Biden administration.

So far, 126 of the state’s 254 counties are on the list.

Demands are growing in Washington to end Texas’ independence from the national power grid, a decadeslong tradition that has kept federal regulators at bay.

Those cries may grow louder as Texans presses for more aid, particularly if state leaders try to get federal taxpayers to subsidize retrofits of gas lines, power plants and wind turbines. Federal regulators urged such weatherization a decade ago but lacked the authority to enforce the suggestion.

Sen. John Cornyn, who joined Biden and Abbott in Houston, is proposing federal grants to help weatherize the Texas grid, a project that could cost tens of millions.

Aides to Sen. Ted Cruz said the White House did not invite him, though Cruz was already scheduled to be in Orlando to address the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday morning. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said there was neither an invitation, nor a request from Cruz, to join the president.

At the Harris County Emergency Operations Center, County Judge Lina Hidalgo welcomed the president.

“This has been our home away from home for five months” through a pandemic and then last week’s crisis of bitter cold that knocked out power, heat and drinking water, she said. Hidalgo gushed about the hard work of the county’s emergency staff.

“These folks have been the tip of the spear when it comes to fighting for our community. They have been sleeping in the stairwells... They were here every night last week.”

“Mr. President your support means the world to us,” she said.

Biden replied: “Hell of an operation here. It’s probably the best one in the country ... . You’re saving peoples’ lives. As my mother would say, you’re doing God’s work.”

The president also thanked Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner for the “passport” allowing him to come to Texas.

Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, had a color coded map of Texas showing the vast areas of the state not yet under a federal major disaster declaration. FEMA and the administration have said they’re open to more designations but need data to back it up. Kidd made the case that the crisis itself has kept many counties from collecting and reporting the data demanded after seven days of sub-freezing temps.

“We have a lot of families and businesses and importantly schools that have not yet been able to submit their damage assessments to us,” Kidd said.

“We want to continue to work closely with our local partners grabbing that assessment, and with our federal partners to get that information to us so we can make the best decision possible for all of us,” he said, adding that at least 4,600 school buildings across the state have broken water pipes. “We’ve got a long way to go. Mr. President, I know we can get through this together and we’ve just got to keep going.”

Hidalgo said the quick response from FEMA and the administration was appreciated.

“Them coming here gives hope you know --it’s a community that needs hope. It’s a community that’s been just been, you know, torn down so many times now. It’s just disaster after disaster,” she said.

And Turner said that he expects Biden to do more for the state than just in Harris County.

“Though he’s here in Houston — Harris County — the same issues are taking place throughout the state of Texas . ... I think being here in Houston, Harris County, is also speaking to what he intends to do across the board.” Turner said.

Biden has steered well clear of the finger pointing triggered by the grid collapse, and aides were adamant that he will bring only empathy and reassurance that help is coming, while refraining from lectures about the wisdom of Texas’ ardor for deregulation.