Published January 13, 2015
President George W. Bush is making his third trip to survey Gulf Coast hurricane damage in two weeks, and he says he fully expects to meet plenty of frustrated people when he gets to Texas.
"My message will be that we hear you, and we'll work as hard and fast as we can to help you get your lives back up to normal," the president said.
He is traveling Tuesday to two Texas cities hit hardest by Hurricane Ike, Galveston and Houston.
The trip to his home state takes the place of a campaign fundraising swing he had planned for the day through Topeka, Kansas, and Fort Worth, Texas; those duties are being performed instead by first lady Laura Bush.
Click here for photos | Click here for uReport photos
While in Texas, Bush planned to survey damage, talk to people affected by the storm and assess the government's response so far. He is scheduled to receive briefings from local officials in the two cities, and take a helicopter tour of Ike-damaged areas.
The main needs for people in the storm zone are food, water and ice. More than 2 million in Texas alone lack power and could face weeks before the lights come back on.
"People are working hard," the president said Monday after a briefing from top administration officials about the storm and its aftermath. "There's crews coming in from around the country to help."
Ike battered the Texas and Louisiana coasts on Saturday, coming ashore at Galveston as a strong Category 2 with 110 mph (177 kph) winds, before striking Houston and slogging across the nation's midsection. The eye missed the center of Houston, but destroyed much in places like the resort barrier island of Bolivar Peninsula, just east of Galveston. The death toll reached at least 40 in Texas and nine other states and many thousands are facing weeks in shelters.
Bush said Monday that disruptions to energy supplies are one of his prime concerns, because the hurricane's toll on refineries and pipelines is creating "an upward pressure on price" on already expensive costs at the gasoline pump.
"There's going to be a pinch," he said. "I wish it wasn't the case, but it is."
On Monday, a gallon of regular gasoline rose half a penny overnight to a national average of $3.842 — up 16.7 cents from Friday, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express.
Bush noted the damage to infrastructure was extensive, but still not as bad as some had predicted.
Ike missed the largest concentrations of oil and gas refineries. But at least 14 Texas refineries closed before the storm made landfall, removing more than 20 percent of the nation's petroleum refining capacity. Ike also destroyed at least a dozen production platforms and drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico — though only a tiny fraction of those there — and production is still shut down in the critical region.
Two major pipelines are up and running again, and power has been restored to a number of massive refineries. But it may be several weeks before the nation's refining capacity is restored.
Earlier this month, Bush scrapped an opening-night speech at the Republican National
Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, to fly instead to emergency command centers in Texas just as Hurricane Gustav hit. He returned to the region later that week to visit Louisiana.
Click here for Texas emergency contacts and information.
Click here for more from MyFOXHouston.com.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/bush-returns-to-gulf-coast-this-time-for-ike