Beryl Recovery: Acting Governor Dan Patrick accuses President Biden of making storm into political issue
HOUSTON - On Tuesday, just one day after Hurricane Beryl made landfall along the central Texas coast, accusations are flying regarding Texas' response to reach out for federal help.
According to the White House, President Joe Biden spoke with Houston Mayor John Whitmire, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, Acting Governor Dan Patrick and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell about the impacts of Hurricane Beryl.
It was during that call, according to Biden's post on X, that while speaking with Patrick, he "immediately approved a Major Disaster Declaration."
In Biden's post on X, he said, "Following Beryl, I know Texans are concerned about power outages and extreme heat. That's why we've moved generators into the community to help reduce impacts of power outages and are staging water, meals, and tarps to keep families healthy."
Following that post on X, Patrick responded saying that Biden was making Hurricane Beryl into a political issue, saying, "I am disappointed that President Biden is turning Hurricane Beryl into a political issue. We had a cordial call today that ended up with him granting my request for a major disaster declaration. But that's not good enough for him. He is falsely accusing me that I was not reachable."
The post went on to say, "He obviously did not know his own employees from FEMA were side-by-side with me for 3 days! All he had to do was call them and have them hand their phone to me. I even took a photo with them!"
Patrick rounded out the post saying, "Before we made an official ask, we needed to determine what our outstanding needs were. We were working on that with local officials as we traveled the impacted areas. As I was being briefed today, the president called. To quote President Biden, this is a load of malarkey, and he's shoveling it!"
Recovery efforts continue across the Houston area and the state of Texas following Beryl's destructive path across the state.