Floods in Texas: Donald Trump on site

US President Donald Trump went to Texas on Friday bruised by floods that caused 120 people to death, when the government’s response and local authorities are pointed out.

The president and his wife Melania are expected on the spot a week just after the disaster which also made more than 170 missing.

The center of Texas was struck on July 4, the day of national holiday in the United States, by torrential rains which caused sudden floods, surprising many inhabitants in their sleep.

In total, at least 120 deaths related to the floods were identified. The county of Kerr is the hardest hit with 96 dead, including 36 children. A Christian girl holiday camp, located in the locality of Hunt, on the shores of the Guadalupe river, paid a heavy price: 27 children and monitors perished in the disaster.

The visit of the American president intervenes while the questions are more pressing on the management of the crisis by the local authorities and on the impact of the budget cuts, wanted by the Trump administration, on the alert and rescue systems.

Questioned shortly after the disaster to find out if he always intended to gradually delete the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Donald Trump replied that it was not the time to talk about it.

The republican leader, who had previously declared that in the event of a disaster, the emergency services were to be managed at the level of the States, also quickly signed a disaster declaration in order to provide Texas with the means of the federal government.

“The means of the Ministry of Internal Security […] engaged in an unprecedented action alongside the Texans aid, ”insisted on his account X the minister, Kristi Noem on Thursday.

“The immediate response to the disaster was rapid and effective,” she added, while the CNN channel says that FEMA’s rescue operations were delayed by bureaucratic obstacles after a new rule adopted by the minister to reduce expenses.

Last week, the White House had to respond to the criticisms that the budget cuts in national weather services had informed the reliability of forecasts and alerts.

His spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that the American weather services (NWS) had issued “predictions and alerts that are both precise and in due time”. The sheriff of Kerr County, Larry Leitha, said it was alerted “around 4 or 5 am” by calls for rescue services.

According to the Texan Ksat channel, a local firefighter requested at 4:22 am the sending of “red code” alerts, an emergency message on the phones of the inhabitants of Hunt, the most affected locality, while the waters of the Guadalupe river, supplied by Diluvian rains, rose dangerously.

However, according to this local media affiliated with CNN and ABC, the sheriff’s office would have asked the firefighter to wait, time to obtain the authorization of a superior.

The “red code” alerts were reportedly sent at least 90 minutes later, around 6 a.m., and the message took up to six hours to reach some residents of Hunt, according to Ksat. Questioned several times this week on this subject, local authorities have been kicked out.

More than 2,000 rescuers, police and cynophile teams, supported by helicopters, excavate the area tirelessly for seven days to try to locate the disappeared, even if the chances of finding them alive are now tiny.

The last living person was rescued on July 4, the same day of the flood, according to the authorities.