Trump praises Texas disaster response while FEMA’s future is murky : NPR

President Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, meet the local staff of the emergency services as they question the flood damage along the Guadalupe river on July 11 in Kerrville, Texas.

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President Trump visited a Texas torn by the storm on Friday while the leaves the best federal catastrophe agency in the country remains uncertain.

The Governor of Texas Greg Abbott and other local leaders congratulated the president for a quick response and to sign an enlarged emergency declaration for The area affected after flooding Killed more than 100 people, a lot with a lot of missing.

Trump and First Lady Melania Trump met with state officials and the first speakers, as well as families of Kerrville victims.

“As a nation, we mourn for each life that has been swept away in the flood, and we pray for the families who are left. It is incredible, the incredible spirit of these families. I do not know, I do not even know how they do it,” said Trump during a round table after meeting families.

The first lady said the nation was in mourning with them. She said they had prayed, hugged and held the hand, while sharing stories. She said that she had been given a bracelet, which she wore at the round table, “in honor of all the little girls who … lost her life” at the Camp Mystic.

First lady Melania Trump speaks during a meeting with local officials and first speakers in Kerrville, Texas, on July 11, after devastating floods in the region during the weekend of July 4. Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)

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Melania Trump said she had promised to come back.

In the context of the emotional scene, there were questions about the preparation of Texas communities for floods, if the warning systems could have been better – and how the federal government plans to approach disasters in the future.

During the round table, Trump pushed a question from a Texas journalist concerning if the inhabitants were properly informed before the floods. When he was asked if he had a message for families who were upset by the alert system, said Trump, he thought that “everyone did an incredible job in the circumstances”. He added later: “Only a very evil person would ask a question like this.”

Although he praised the response to Texas, Trump did not directly deal with his broader vision of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Shortly after starting his second mandate, Trump said he wanted to revise the FEMA and put more erament for emergency interventions on states.

Internal security secretary Kristi Noem supervises FEMA and stressed in the Friday round table that the federal government played a supporting role in this effort.

Noem said that the administration “autonomizes the state and local officials to make the best decisions for their people, because they know their people, they know their community, and when they ask, then we enter and support them”.

Abbott and we Representative Chip Roy, R-Texas also underlined the means that the communities of the State and local communities are heading towards the rescue and recovery lance. Abbott also noted that there would be community sessions to consider Solutions to move forward, including potentially different alert systems for future floods.

“We are going to work on each solution to ensure that things like this do not happen again, not only in this community, but also in other river basins through the state. We will therefore work to do things well,” said Abbott.

Roy referred to a Hill Country Foundation which had raised $ 30 million. He criticized the question of whether the alert system has not failed as unnecessary points.

“People in this community have rallied to help people,” he said. “And it is the sustainable image – these little girls from the Mystic camp who sang hymns while they looked at the damage when leaving this camp that came out of there. And it is the inhabitants of Texas.”

Trump said the federal government will continue to support Texas with everything it needs.

“The billions of dollars that this country offer for things they should not do, and they are not billions of dollars,” he said in an interview with Fox News when he left the State. “It’s a relatively small sum of money, but it’s – it’s a lot of love, it’s a lot of love and a lot of heart. And so we will remain involved.”

The administration did not declare directly if it would follow the plans to eliminate FEMA in its current form in December 2025, as Trump suggested. A advice responsible for recommending changes to the agency, which includes members of the cabinet, governors – including Abbott and emergency management experts – was to make recommendations by mid -November and complete its work by May 2026.

The FEMA offers billions of dollars in communities who are struck by disasters, but often faces criticism to be too slow to get rid of help and ineffective. Many emergency management experts say that FEMA plays a crucial role in the response to disasters that are too large and require too many resources for a state to manage.

The NPR political journalist, Elena Moore, contributed to this report.