«When disaster strikes, we expect a governor to be on the scene.»
Governor Greg Abbott has been criticized for being on a trip to the Far East when Hurricane Beryl struck Texas.
The storm made landfall near Matagorda last Monday, and is believed to have killed at least 13 people in the Houston area alone, according to the Houston Chronicle’s analysis of county figures. The official death toll is yet to be revealed.
More than 140,000 Texans are still without power, PowerOutage.us’ most recent update says, after the hurricane ripped through the parts of the state.
During all this destruction, Abbott was on a preplanned nine-day economic development trip to Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.
Opinion journalists for the Houston Chronicle, who write under the collective byline The Editorial Board, slammed Abbott for this, saying: «When disaster strikes, we expect a governor to be on the scene.»
The piece, published on Monday, described the weather in several of the places Abbott visited, in contrast to the heavy rain and wind Texans were enduring.
It said: «The temperature was pleasant in Tokyo, Gov. Greg Abbott’s third and final city on a nine-day run to the Far East, with rain, no wind. Seoul, South Korea, the second city on a junket that began July 5, was about the same but sunny. Taipei, Taiwan, the first city Abbott and his trade delegation visited, was hot—but then, like those other two metropolises, Taipei has air conditioning.
