WASHINGTON -- An upbeat President Donald Trump landed Saturday morning in Houston to get a firsthand look at a flooded and mud-choked metropolis devastated by Hurricane Harvey's record rainfall and storm surge, declaring himself "very happy" with rescue and recovery efforts.
Officials in Beaumont, Texas, which lost its drinking water system because of Harvey, struggled Saturday to restore that service, and firefighters kept monitoring a crippled chemical plant in Crosby, Texas, that has twice been the scene of explosions and fires since the storm roared ashore and stalled over Texas more than a week ago.
Trump was in an upbeat mood during a stop at the NRG Center, a convention building that's been converted into a temporary shelter for 1,800 children and adults displaced by floodwaters. Touring the facility with television cameras trailing him, Trump threw his arms around storm survivors -- and they hugged him back. He posed for selfies and hoisted one young girl in ponytails into his arms.
"There's a lot of love. As tough as it's been, it's been a wonderful thing to watch," Trump told reporters before heading into a room where he handed out boxed lunches of hot dogs and potato chips to residents. "I'm going to do a little bit of help over here."
Trump, making his second trip to the region in the past week, also visited southwestern Louisiana.
The president, wearing a broad smile and a blue windbreaker with the presidential seal, said shelter residents had given the recovery effort, and him, good reviews. "They're really happy with what's going on," he told reporters. "It's something that's been very well received. Even by you guys, it's been very well received."
He added, "Have a good time, everybody!"
At a stop at the First Church in the Houston suburb of Pearland, which has been providing food to people in the region, Trump marveled at the roads he saw that had been flooded just two or three days before.
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Standing alongside Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, first lady Melania Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz at the church, Trump offered words of hope for the survivors of the storm.
"The water's disappearing," Trump said. "We knew we have a long way to go, but the water's disappearing. And you look at the neighborhoods and you see it's -- we just saw it through there. Two days ago, even yesterday, they had water. Today it's all swept up and cleaned up. We've got a lot of hardworking people, I'll tell you that."
Trump closed by discussing the effort to rebuild. "We're talking about, they say two years, three years, but I think that because this is Texas you'll probably do it in six months!"
DAMAGE TOLL MOUNTS
The soggy and battered city of Houston began burying its dead and taking steps toward the long recovery ahead.
Officials in Beaumont, population almost 120,000, worked to repair their water plant, which failed after the swollen Neches River inundated the main intake system and backup pumps failed. The Army Corps of Engineers sent pumps, and an Exxon Mobil team built and installed a temporary intake pipe to help refill a city reservoir. Exxon Mobil has a refinery and chemical plants in Beaumont.
In Crosby, outside Houston, authorities continued to monitor the Arkema plant where three trailers of unstable chemical compounds ignited in recent days, sending thick black smoke and flames into the air. A Harris County fire marshal spokesman said Saturday that there were no active fires at the facility, but six more trailers were being watched.
The storm is blamed for at least 44 deaths. The latest death was a man who was found floating in Cypress Creek floodwaters. The addition to a list kept by the Harris County Institute for Forensic Sciences brings the total deaths in the county to 29.
Earlier Saturday, authorities in Port Arthur, Texas, said the body of 88-year-old Dorothy Helen Lacobie was found partially submerged in her flooded bedroom.
Also, fire officials in the community of New Waverly, about 55 miles north of Houston, said a 6-month-old baby was missing and presumed dead after being ripped out of its parents' arms and swept away by floodwaters when the family fled in their pickup last Sunday, the Houston Chronicle reported.
The storm is believed to have damaged at least 156,000 dwellings in Harris County, which includes Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city. Many Houston streets remain 4 or more feet underwater.
An estimated 100,000 houses in Houston have been damaged or destroyed, with tens of thousands of displaced residents seeking shelter in local schools, in government buildings or on the couches of friends and neighbors who live on higher ground.
The American Red Cross said more than 17,000 people have sought refuge in Texas shelters such as the one Trump visited.
The Houston school district said that when school starts this month up to 12,000 students will be sent to different schools because of flood-damaged buildings.
Twenty-two of its 245 schools had extensive damage that will keep them closed for months. Superintendent Richard Carranza said the goal is to start the school year on Sept. 11, but that could change.
Kim Martinez, 28, waited Saturday for insurance adjusters to arrive in her Southbelt/Ellington neighborhood, a devastated middle-class area of southeast Houston.
The mother of two was hosting a watch party for the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor boxing match Aug. 26 when floodwaters forced about 15 people to climb into the attic. They escaped the next day.
"You can be prepared for anything but not a monster storm like Harvey," said her mother, Maria Martinez, 63.
Valerie Williams returned to her flood-damaged home to find mud covering the walls and everything but her dining room table destroyed.
"People, they say we're praying for you and stuff. Well, we appreciate the prayers. We really do. But what we need is assistance," Williams said.
Not everyone was able to think about rebuilding yet.
About 200 people waved signs and shouted as they rallied Saturday outside a still-flooded subdivision in the west Houston suburb of Katy, demanding answers about when they will be able to return home. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner has warned residents that their homes could remain flooded for up to 15 days because of ongoing releases of water from two reservoirs protecting downtown.
The city said the releases are necessary to preserve the reservoirs' structural integrity, but many at the rally said their homes were being sacrificed to save others.
On Saturday night, Turner ordered mandatory evacuations for people who haven't left their homes in part of the city that remains flooded.
Turner said about 300 people had stayed behind in western stretches of the city inundated by water that the Army Corp of Engineers has released from the reservoirs. Turner on Friday had asked residents in the area to leave. On Saturday, he said those who had stayed behind were endangering themselves and first responders.
There are 4,700 dwellings in the flooded area, including houses and apartments.
A representative for CenterPoint Energy said the utility would start cutting power to homes in the area at 7 a.m. today.
PRESIDENT'S 2ND VISIT
Trump's visit to Houston and Lake Charles, La., was his second to survey the damage since Harvey hit. He'd rushed to Texas on Tuesday, visiting in Corpus Christi and Austin to talk to first responders. He was criticized for that visit as being off-key during a time of crisis. "What a crowd, what a turnout," he'd said as he stood outside a Corpus Christi firehouse.
Trump's trip Saturday was something of a do-over, a chance for him to strike a more sympathetic tone. Joined by the first lady, the president went directly to the NRG Center and was greeted warmly by volunteers and children. The Trumps provided coloring books and crayons, and sat with families that had been displaced.
The reaction in the shelter to Trump's visit was mostly positive, with a quiet undercurrent of anxiety and skepticism.
"Is he going to help? Can he help?" asked Devin Harris, 37, a construction worker. "I lost my home. My job is gone. My tools are gone. My car is gone. My life is gone. What is Trump going to do?"
Turner said he spoke to the president about the importance of getting storm evacuees out of shelters and into housing, and helping people who are still in their homes but in need of assistance.
The mayor called his discussions with Trump "very positive."
About 1,000 evacuees remained at the George R. Brown Convention Center, down from a peak of about 10,000, city officials said.
"I'm a Democrat. It raises the morale," Kevin Jason Hipolito, 37, said of Trump's visit. Hipolito, an unemployed Houston resident, was rescued from the roof of his flooded Acura after fleeing his flooded first-floor apartment.
"When he went to Corpus, I was like, 'Man, he just forgot about us.' This shows a lot of support," Hipolito said Saturday.
But not everyone thought Trump should be making a visit -- much less a second one -- to an area still in disaster mode.
"This has taken a lot of resources from the emergency medical workers," said Connie Field, 62, a retired oil accounting worker from Sugar Land, Texas, who voted for Trump. "We still need them out there."
Field, who waved a small U.S. flag at passing military vehicles, did not suffer any damage in the flood. She said Texas did not need Trump on the ground.
White House officials, conscious of such criticism, approved Saturday's trip after being given assurances by Texas officials that the visit would not disrupt recovery efforts, according to senior administration aides.
The Trumps were joined by an entourage that included four Cabinet officials and the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Before leaving for Louisiana, Trump stopped by a street that had only recently become passable again.
"These are people that have done a fantastic job of getting things together," he said as people stood near ripped-out drywall and trash bags piled high at their curbs.
He spotted a man wearing a red "Trump is my president" T-shirt and pulled him in front of news cameras. "Look at this guy," he said. "You just became famous."
From Houston, Trump flew to Lake Charles, La., where he met with first responders and a group of volunteers known as the Cajun Navy.
Louisiana's Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards accompanied him. Supporters lined the route to and from the National Guard Armory, and before leaving for Washington, the president posed for photos with law enforcement officers who'd led his motorcade.
Trump has asked U.S. lawmakers for a $7.9 billion down payment toward Harvey relief and recovery efforts -- a request expected to be swiftly approved by Congress, which returns to work Tuesday.
Harvey came ashore Aug. 25 as a Category 4 hurricane on the Texas Gulf Coast. It then went back out to sea and lingered off the coast as a tropical storm for several days. The storm produced five straight days of rain that totaled close to 52 inches in one location, the heaviest tropical downpour ever recorded in the continental U.S.
Information for this article was contributed by Glenn Thrush and Jack Healy of The New York Times; by Darlene Superville, Julie Bykowicz, Ken Thomas, Jay Reeves, Juliet Linderman, Jeff Amy, Johnny Clark, Frank Bajak, Jason Dearen, Elliot Spagat, Adam Kealoha Causey and Tammy Webber of The Associated Press; and by Toluse Olorunnipa and Anna Edgerton of Bloomberg News.
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