Biden Blames Texas State Officials for Delays in Federal Aid For Hurricane Beryl

Source: Joe Biden / Getty

President Joe Biden told The Houston Chronicle earlier this week that he had been trying to “track down” Gov. Greg Abbott to start the process of requesting aid. “I’ve been trying to track down the governor to see – I don’t have the authority to do that without a specific request from the governor,” Biden told The Chronicle.

Abbott has been overseas for the past several days, with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick taking on the role of acting governor during the state’s response to Hurricane Beryl in his absence. The White House said officials tried to reach Patrick and Abbott “multiple times.”

“We’ve been working on this for two days and we finally got the request,” Biden said. “We positioned an awful lot of stuff in Texas ahead of time, but I had to get a specific request for this.”

Beryl drenched Houston with a summer’s worth of rain and brought 75 mph winds with gusts even higher. Over 13 inches of rain fell in some parts of the Houston area. 15 inches is the average for June, July and August.

Flash flooding became a serious issue as a result of the torrential rains. The storm caused water levels to rise 10.29 feet above normal, the second-highest level on record, according to the NOAA. The highest recorded level was 10.47 feet above normal in 2017, courtesy of Hurricane Harvey, In Galveston Bay, the storm surge was 4.5 to 5.5 feet in many areas.

Houston highways were littered with stranded cars in many areas, stalled by floodwaters.

George Bush Intercontinental Airport and William P. Hobby Airport canceled 80% and 60% of their flights, respectively, according to CNN.

More than 2.4 million customers lost power across the state of Texas during the storm. By late Monday night 1.8 million CenterPoint customers remained without power. The company said it expects to restore power to 1 million customers by Wednesday evening.