Joe Biden travels to Texas to survey damage from winter storm that killed at least two dozen
- The storm caused serious damage to homes and businesses and left millions without power or water for days
- Biden met volunteers at a Houston food bank and toured a health centre where Covid-19 vaccines are being distributed
Biden and his wife Jill Biden landed in Houston where he met Republican Governor Greg Abbott and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner to discuss the recovery from last week’s storm, which caused serious damage to homes and businesses, left millions without power or clean water for days, and killed at least two dozen.
At the Houston Food Bank, the largest in the country serving more than 1.1 million people, Biden saw rows of packaged food, from pasta to applesauce, stacked in a large warehouse and watched conveyors move slowly as volunteers pulled food out of boxes and put them in containers for delivery.
He visited an emergency operations centre in Harris County, where roughly 50 per cent of the county’s 4.9 million residents were without power. “As my mother would say to you, you’re doing God’s work,” he told workers there.
Biden, a Democrat, has sought to bring consolation and empathy to the hard-hit state, which leans heavily Republican. When he visited a vaccination centre, he repeated his message of unity. “We’re not here as Democrats or Republicans. We’re here today as Americans.”