Biden Looks to Step Up Federal Disaster Aid for Texas

The Texas Division of Emergency Management said it had transported 1.7 million bottles of water and assisted in delivering ready-to-eat meals. It said the Texas Military Department had deployed six units in North Texas earlier in the week to assist with rescuing stranded motorists and conducting welfare checks. The division said Friday it had requested water, meals, blankets and generators from FEMA, but didn’t provide details on when it had done so. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office referred questions about the pace of the response to Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd, who said icy roadways had made it impossible to move commodities such as water across the state. Mr. Kidd said ice had kept officials from accessing an emergency warehouse in Fort Worth until Thursday night. “We continue to make tremendous strides to overcome the challenges over the past week,” Mr. Abbott said Friday. “We’re working nonstop with local and federal partners. After a request from Mr. Abbott, Mr. Biden declared a state of emergency on Sunday night for all 254 counties in the state, allowing FEMA to make generators and fuel available to maintain critical infrastructure. The governor then asked the president on Thursday for major disaster assistance, which would allow local communities to seek federal help to pay for damage to infrastructure and state residents to recover payments for property damage. Local governments said they still haven’t received the aid they requested from the federal government via the state. Former Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, who was in office during Hurricane Harvey and numerous other natural disasters, said he hadn’t seen the same level of coordination that is routine for responding to hurricanes. “Nobody saw this coming—OK,” he said. “But once it occurred, why didn’t people start thinking about what’s really needed out there.” As of Friday afternoon, an estimated 14.6 million Texans were without safe drinking water, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. A winter storm had burst pipes across the state, leading to dry faucets and an order from city governments to boil any accessible tap water to make it safe to drink. The water crisis came after days of blackouts across the state in subfreezing temperatures.