Trump and the Houston Flooding

How do you teach a man-child to empathize? How does an immature narcissist in a position of leadership take command during a life-threatening crisis? More specifically, how has President Donald Trump been dealing with the “epic” flooding in Houston resulting from Hurricane Harvey?

Donald and Melania Trump showed up in Texas yesterday to survey the damage caused by Hurricane Harvey, showcasing $40 caps that are for sale via the Trump campaign website: “USA/45/TRUMP” for Donald and “Flotus” for Melania. You can’t make this stuff up. Product placement for Trump commodities two days in a row on national television. Everything is for sale in Trump World.

We watched the President and his wife ascend from Air Force One onto the tarmac at Corpus Christi, the safest landing place in the greater Houston area. (The hats remained on all day, even during a conference with rescue and cabinet officials in Austin; the Trump family does not ignore a branding opportunity.)

Water levels at the Addicks and Barker reservoirs in Houston have reached record levels. Harvey has caused the most extreme rain event in U.S. history: over fifty (50) inches of rain and not over yet. One of the Houston reservoirs breached for the first time since it was constructed in the 1940s. The death toll continues to rise, and with many residents refusing to leave their homes, it is likely that many more deaths will occur in those closed-up houses.

While Donald sat at a long table hearing state and local officials’ assessments of flood damage and their ongoing efforts to keep Texas residents safe, the split camera on CNN showed two people perched dangerously on top of a small car, its chassis sunk in the water in what looked like a large lake, although it was actually the San Jacinto River in full flood stage.

After a short flight, Donald and Melania emerged from Air Force One again.

Split screen again: The two small figures still on the car tried hard not to move as water lapped at their feet. A man squatted on the hood of the vehicle, nearly underwater, carefully tying his shoelace and balancing to avoid pitching into the seemingly bottomless water. His companion, a woman who was holding a black umbrella over her head, dangled her legs on the front windshield while sitting precariously on the roof of the bobbing vehicle.

And they waited as shown in that small split screen, sharing cable space with Donald Trump who was pretending to know what he was doing as one official after another reported to him.

“Great,” would say Donald. “That’s terrific.” “The best.” Asking no questions, looking supremely bored, his USA hat still on his head. Not acknowledging his recent rollback of two Obama-era regulations issued for the purpose of mitigating flooding in urban areas such as Houston.

An hour went by and the Trumps vanished from the photos en route to Donald’s second gathering of officials at Austin.

And then, finally, a small rubber boat with three or four rescuers and flood victims aboard was shown approaching the nearly submerged vehicle in the San Jacinto River, and the two people who had remained alive by sheer willpower and luck were taken aboard to safety. The woman’s overturned black umbrella sailed away in the floodwaters, nodding on the waves.

All around the sprawling megalopolis that is Houston, suddenly inundated houses had been taking on water, often within a few hours, and people fled to their second floors and too often, if they had them, to attics—which could act as death traps as had those in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina blew in back in 2005, exactly twelve years ago.

Thousands of stranded Houstonians have been rescued by first responders, the National Guard, volunteers, and neighbors from apartments, houses, cars, and streets, frequently bringing along pet dogs and cats. Many of the rescued are elderly and not a few are on stretchers or in wheelchairs. Thousands more remain stranded and frightened, with multiple overlapping rescue commands trying to coordinate forays into flooded neighborhoods, the central command often in some disarray as the facts on the ground continue to change.

Tens of thousands of people are being housed in temporary shelters in Houston and elsewhere as volunteers provide bedding, clothing, meals, medical assistance, and reassurance. Even millionaire evangelist Joel Osteen, who initially claimed his megachurch was flooded, was finally shamed into opening his facility to the drenched, exhausted public.

A Houston bedding showroom went viral when its two branches invited the public to sleep on its mattresses and recliners and eat (free) at its adjacent restaurants. Six hundred people have been living in those showrooms for days thanks to the generosity of “Mattress Mack”—proprietor Jim McIngvale, owner of Gallery Furniture.

But did the Trumps stop by to give the newly homeless people some hope and cheer, and like previous presidents would, show some empathy and kindness? Maybe a hug? Nope.

Rather, as The Washington Post has pointed out, “[Trump] made virtually no mention of the storm’s victims, and there was no indication he met with any. He didn’t call for donations or volunteers. He didn’t mourn the dead.”

Instead, “President Trump grabbed a microphone to address hundreds of supporters who had gathered outside a firehouse near Corpus Christi and were chanting: ‘USA! USA! USA!’” He waved the state flag of Texas.

“Trump marveled at the size of Harvey (‘it’s epic, what happened,’ ‘the most rain ever’), gushed about the crowd that had gathered to see him (‘what a turnout’), offered hyperbole about the recovery effort (it will be ‘something very special’), and thanked his FEMA administrator (‘a man who has really become very famous on television over the last couple of days’).”

As of Tuesday afternoon, Trump had “talked favorably about the higher television ratings that come with hurricane coverage, predicted that he will soon be congratulating himself and used 16 exclamation points in 22 often breathless tweets about the storm. But [he] had yet to mention those killed, call on other Americans to help or directly encourage donations to relief organizations.”

Did Trump mention the bravery and self-sacrifice of Houston Police Officer Steve Perez, who died in the floodwaters trapped in his patrol car as he attempted to get to work early in the storm? Not a word. Not even a telephone call to his family.

What everybody fears will continue to unfold in the days and weeks to come—both in Texas and now in Louisiana—is the discovery of the dead bodies of residents who have been left behind in their homes. Many of the Katrina deaths in New Orleans were not determined for weeks as individuals who sought shelter in their attics succumbed from dehydration and starvation, unnoticed and invisible within their four walls.

At least eighteen hundred people died in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. This problem could be replicated many times over in the much larger city of Houston where thousands of rescues have already occurred and thousands more will no doubt be undertaken in the next three to four days as Harvey’s floods slowly release their grip on the city.

A number of people have refused to be rescued from their homes in some outlying areas approached by the Louisiana Cajun Navy, an informal organization of private recreation boat owners who assist in flood search-and-rescue efforts and brought their boats, gas, food, and gumption to the task. Other rescue groups report similar problems. Many people are more afraid of leaving everything behind than facing a problematic future in a public shelter.

With the floodwaters expected to continue to rise in some places, it is anybody’s guess what the final death toll will be.