Governor Greg Abbott has been criticized for being on a trip to the Far East when Hurricane Beryl struck Texas.
The storm made landfall near Matagorda last Monday, and is believed to have killed at least 13 people in the Houston area alone, according to the Houston Chronicle‘s analysis of county figures. The official death toll is yet to be revealed.
More than 140,000 Texans are still without power, PowerOutage.us’ most recent update says, after the hurricane ripped through the parts of the state.
During all this destruction, Abbott was on a preplanned nine-day economic development trip to Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.
Opinion journalists for the Houston Chronicle, who write under the collective byline The Editorial Board, slammed Abbott for this, saying: “When disaster strikes, we expect a governor to be on the scene.”
The piece, published on Monday, described the weather in several of the places Abbott visited, in contrast to the heavy rain and wind Texans were enduring.
It said: “The temperature was pleasant in Tokyo, Gov. Greg Abbott’s third and final city on a nine-day run to the Far East, with rain, no wind. Seoul, South Korea, the second city on a junket that began July 5, was about the same but sunny. Taipei, Taiwan, the first city Abbott and his trade delegation visited, was hot—but then, like those other two metropolises, Taipei has air conditioning. Each day, the governor posted X updates about how well his Asian hosts were receiving him and his entourage.
“But Gulf Coast Texans were, shall we say, less than pleased that Abbott was 7,000 miles across the Pacific when Hurricane Beryl wreaked havoc on our region.”
When Abbott was away, he tried to reassure Texans, writing on X: “While I am in Taiwan, South Korea & Japan working on business deals worth billions, I remain in daily contact with Texas Division of Emergency Management & local officials to ensure preparation for Hurricane Beryl. Your safety is our top concern.”
Abbott had left Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in charge of the disaster, who “did fine except for the fact that he forgot that it’s up to the governor (in this case, the acting governor) to contact the White House and request an official disaster declaration,” the op-ed said.
Last Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden told the state newspaper that he had been trying to get hold of the governor to ask about whether Texas needed emergency federal funding.
“I’ve been trying to track down the governor to see—I don’t have any authority to do that without a specific request from the governor,” Biden said.
Patrick said at a news conference that afternoon that there was “no delay from the White House, no delay from us.”
“The truth is, before you can ask for a declaration you have to go meet with people in the impacted areas to see what’s needed and the level of need,” he said.
Abbott’s press secretary Andrew Mahaleris responded at the time, denying Biden’s version of events, saying: “This is a complete lie from President Biden, and frankly doesn’t make any sense. The president and his administration know exactly how to get in contact with the governor and have on numerous occasions in the past.”
The Chronicle’s Op-Ed goes on to criticize Abbott and Patrick for not seeming “interested in finding out why the (power) grid is still broken, even after promises from state officials to fix it in the aftermath of Uri.” Uri stuck in February, 2021.
It ended with one last jibe at the “globe-trotting governor” who was away when “Hurricane Beryl hit, as millions of Texans sweltered, without electricity in a week of life-threatening heat” with a nod to George Bush’s controversial visit to a devastated New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
He flew over the flooded city but did not land, before telling his director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency: “You’re doing a heck of a job.”
The Chronicle turned these words on Abbott, telling him: “‘Heck of a job,’ indeed.”
Newsweek has contacted Abbott, via his press team’s email address, for a response to the Chronicle‘s criticisms.
Read the full article here
