Channel News Asia / World
9/3/2017
HOUSTON: President Donald Trump handed out box lunches and hugged children in a Houston emergency shelter on Saturday, as he witnessed the devastation wrought after Hurricane Harvey unleashed apocalyptic floods on America’s fourth-largest city.
The sprawling Texas city was taking tentative steps back to normalcy after a week of flooding that damaged 40,000 to 50,000 homes and sent tens of thousands fleeing to emergency shelters.
Harvey has been blamed for at least 42 deaths. The White House has asked Congress for US$7.85 billion for Harvey-related “response and initial recovery efforts,” calling it a “down payment” on the long-term cost of recovering from the record flooding, which is expected to be in the tens of billions.
“We’re signing a lot of documents now to get money. $7.9 billion,” Trump said at the giant NRG Center exhibition space that has been turned into a shelter. “We signed it and now it’s going through a very quick, hopefully quick process.”
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