 A wildfire burns land near Austin, Texas, April 17, 2011. U.S. Northern Command has deployed six C-130 aircraft fitted with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service's Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems to support the fight against ongoing wildfires. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Air ForceGovernor Rick Perry is blasting the Obama Administration for being slow to react to the Texas wild fires disaster. Texas Public Radio's David Martin Davies reports.
April 28, 2011 · Twenty-four hundred square miles of Texas have been blackened by wildfires so far this year, and there is still no response from Washington D.C., for disaster help. That’s the message Governor Rick Perry brought to the state’s emergency responders who gathered in San Antonio for the 2011 Texas Emergency Management Conference.
Perry said he sent President Obama a letter asking for federal emergency relief, and that he has yet to get a response.
“When you turn on the news channels and you see hundreds of thousands of Texas acres burning, you know that in short notice there’s going to be emergency declarations. It starts with the counties and it comes to us and we put in. We’ve done that now a couple of weeks ago. Still no response though from this administration. It’s always frustrating. There’s a point in time when you say, 'Hey, what’s going on here? Why are you taking care of Alabama? Why are you taking care of other states and for some reason or another. . .the letter didn’t get lost in the mail,” Perry said.
President Obama will be in Alabama on Friday touring the devastation from the deadly wave of tornados that have hit the south.
Perry also used the disaster theme to make a point to state lawmakers about the Rainy Day Fund. He wants them to leave the savings account alone, because Texas needs to be prepared to deal with possible mega-disasters.
“We’re going into a hurricane season that they already projected to be 50 percent more active than last year. But if you hit Houston with a category 4 or 5, And we’ve only got a couple of billion dollars in the rainy day fund Instead of being able to go in and start rebuilding and recovering, we’re talking about bankruptcy.”
The State Senate is looking at taping into the rainy day fund to prevent deep cuts into education and health care. |
