White House Seeks Emergency Funds As Hurricane Harvey Hits 100,000 Homes

Flooded homes are shown near Lake Houston following Hurricane Harvey August 30, 2017 in Houston, Texas. WIN MCNAMEE / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP
The White House said Thursday it would ask Congress for emergency funding to help pay for recovery in Texas and Louisiana from mega-storm Harvey, as a top official said the number of homes affected had hit 100,000.

“We’re going to have damage to publicly owned infrastructure,” said Donald Trump’s homeland security advisor Tom Bossert.

The administration will “put together a responsible supplemental request for Congress,” he added.

Bossert did not say how much money would be requested, but it could run in the billions of dollars, putting pressure on already strained finances.

The announcement came as the vast scale of the damage from Harvey began to come into focus.

“These are estimates at this point, but it looks like round about 100,000 affected homes,” he said.

“That’s a big number. We’re going to have 100,000 affected homes, all with different degrees of insurance — some with flood insurance, some underinsured, some uninsured.”

The White House also announced that President Trump would personally donate one million dollars to the recovery effort.

AFP