KERRVILLE, Texas (TNND) — President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will visit Texas one week after heavy rainfall caused the Guadalupe River to rise 26 feet in less than an hour, resulting in catastrophic flash flooding that killed at least 120 people, including dozens of children.
Kerrville residents Edgar Rojas, second from left, and his wife Perla, alongside daughters Emily, left, and Olivia, visit a memorial for flood victims along the Guadalupe River on Thursday, July 10, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
According to the White House, Trump will visit the state emergency operations center to meet with first responders and relatives of flood victims and get a briefing from officials. Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Ted Cruz are joining the visit, with the GOP senators expected to fly to their state with Trump aboard Air Force One.
Local, state and federal agencies have continued to search for more than 170 people still missing, while officials are under scrutiny for the steps that were taken to warn people.
One of the hardest hit areas was Kerr County, where Camp Mystic, a century-old all-girls Christian summer camp, lost 27 campers and counselors.
Sheriff Larry Leitha said Wednesday there are at least 95 fatalities, including 36 children. Five campers and one counselor remain missing from the camp.
Trump signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr County over the weekend, activating the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to Texas.
He told reporters on Sunday that he would likely visit the area but avoided answering a question about his desire to shutter FEMA after the 2025 hurricane season.
Instead, Trump has stayed in touch with Gov. Greg Abbott about the disaster and boasted about his “very close” relationship with the governor.
Abbott said on Tuesday the president pledged to provide whatever relief Texas needs to recover from the flooding, and read what he said was a text from the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in which Kennedy pledged to declare a public health emergency.
“He could not stop talking about how sad he was for all the little girls who have lost their lives,” Abbott said of Trump. “He recounted his own understanding of what happened with what was really a tsunami wave, a wall of water, that swept too many of them away.”
“And he cares a lot about those young ladies. And he wants to step up and make sure that any need that we have here in Texas is going to be met very quickly,” he continued.
The White House pushed back on criticism Monday that the administration’s cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Weather Service (NWS) are what caused the delay in alerting residents to the flood.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said certain Democrats are trying to turn a national tragedy into a political game.
“Unfortunately, in the wake of this once-in-a-generation natural disaster, we have seen many falsehoods pushed by Democrats such as Senator Chuck Schumer and some members of the media,” she said. “Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning,” she said Monday during a news briefing.
“You should be deeply ashamed,” she said of anyone who pointed fingers at Trump, also describing the accusations and the people who made them as “despicable.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem discussed the federal response during Trump’s sixth cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
“We as a federal government don’t manage these disasters, the state does,” she said. “We come in and support them. And that’s exactly what we did here in this situation. FEMA went to an enhanced level immediately. But as soon as you signed the major disaster declaration, we were able to get them resources and dollars right away, just like you envisioned through state lot grants to help them with cleanup. And we’re still there in presence.”
