President Trump Visits Areas Hardest Hit By Hurricane Laura

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President Trump listens to Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, center, as he tours damage from Hurricane Laura, in Lake Charles, La.

Alex Brandon/AP

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Alex Brandon/AP

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Noting the anniversary, President Trump stressed that Louisiana would rebuild after this disaster too.

«You came together and you rebuilt. America helped, he said. «And here we are today, and you’re going to have this situation taken of very, very quickly.

Gov. Edwards said that although Hurricane Laura did not cause as much damage as forecasts originally predicted, the storm left an incredible mark on the state.

«With Katrina, people heard more about it because the levees broke, he said. «But this is as bad as I’ve ever seen it, folks.

The president then departed for Orange, Texas, another area hit hard by the hurricane earlier this week, where he was met with a round table of members of his own administration, members of Congress and local public officials.

He began the briefing by noting the damage to Louisiana, saying the state «went through something pretty bad.

«I don’t think that you got anything like that, so that’s good, Trump said of the damage Texas faced in comparison to Louisiana.

«In many ways we had a blessing with this hurricane in that it could have been much, much worse, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz said, adding that while the damage was profound, it was not as extreme as the damage done to Louisiana.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday that the state sustained less damage than expected. Thousands of Texans lost power, and at least four people died in Texas from the storm, according to reports.

Trump was asked, again, in Texas about the connection of climate change to the hurricane. «We’ve had tremendous storms in Texas for many decades and for many centuries and that’s the way it is, he said. «We handle them as they come. All I can do is handle them as they come and that’s what we do and nobody has ever done a better job of it.