More than half of Americans in a new poll said the government could have prevented the deaths due to the recent destructive flooding in Texas.
When asked in the poll from The Economist/YouGov if they believed “most of the deaths from the floods in Texas could have been avoided if the government had been better prepared” or if the deaths happened to be “tragic but unavoidable,” 52 percent of respondents said they thought the majority of the deaths “could have been avoided.”
Twenty-nine percent in the same poll said the deaths “were unavoidable,” while 19 percent said they did not “know.”
At least 134 people died in the flooding, and at least 101 remain missing, according to ABC.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has denied reports suggesting the deployment of resources to Texas was slowed due to a new rule requiring her sign-off on all Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grants or contracts worth over $100,000.
During a Sunday interview on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” Noem acknowledged that she put in place the new rule but said the resources were sent quickly after the flooding.
“Those claims are absolutely false. Within just an hour or two after the flooding, we had resources from the Department of Homeland Security there, helping those individuals in Texas. It was a heartbreaking scene,” Noem said.
“And I think it’s been well covered about what the Coast Guard did, how they were deployed immediately and helped rescue so many individuals from those floodwaters,” she added.
The Economist/YouGov poll took place between July 11 and 14 among 1,680 respondents and has a plus or minus 3.4 percentage points margin of error.
