"This was of epic proportion, no one has ever seen anything like this," Trump said in a live presser Tuesday. "I just want to say that working with the governor and his entire team has been an honor for us."
"We won't say congratulations. We don't want to do that," Trump urged. "We'll congratulate each other when it's all finished."
After being updated on the situation by local, state and FEMA officials, President Trump, along with First Lady Melania Trump, headed to Austin, Texas, to discuss rescue efforts with state officials.
According to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, "a big part of what today will be about is the coordination between local, state and federal officials. That will lay the groundwork for the recovery efforts that are going to be going on for quite some time."
"The president wants to be very cautious about making sure that any activity doesn't disrupt any of the recovery efforts that are still ongoing, which is the reason for the locations we are going [to] today," Sanders told reporters aboard Air Force One Tuesday. "As of right now, I don't know that we will be able to get to some of the really damaged areas."
Since Harvey first made landfall in Rockport, Texas, at least ten people have died as thousands of others have been left displaced. Houston Mayor Sylvester Perez confirmed Tuesday that a 60-year-old officer with the Houston Police Department died after he was "caught in floodwaters while driving" to his post.
— Sylvester Turner (@SylvesterTurner) August 29, 2017
With more than 30 inches of rain already flooding the Houston metro area, and another 20 expected, the National Weather Service called the rainfall and flooding triggered by Harvey "catastrophic and life-threatening" in parts of eastern Texas and western Louisiana.
With Harvey expected to make landfall Wednesday in the Bayou State's Cameron Parish, the region may see a Hurricane Katrina-like impact it witnessed 12 years ago. Officials speculate the area will see an "hourly rainfall rate of 3 to 6 inches." Ten to 15 inches has already been recorded in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards reported first responders had rescued 500 people, warning many others to "pull the trigger today and let us help you get out," if they were concerned about homes flooding.
The unprecedented deluge even caused the weather service to add new color indicators to its charts in order to effectively map the downpour. The new scale denotes a dark purple to mark 15 to 20 inches of rain along with two lighter shades that indicate 20 to 30 and "greater than 30 inches," NPR reported.
— NWS (@NWS) August 28, 2017
Shooting up overnight to $42 billion from $30 billion, Harvey's estimated damages may put the troublesome tropical storm among the top most costly ever, AFP reported.
Chuck Watson, founder of the disaster modeling firm Enki Research, told the press agency that Harvey is about a damaging as Hurricane Ike and Hurricane Wilma, which struck the US in 2008 and 2005 respectively.
