Texas Governor Says Deadly Wildfires Have Destroyed Up to 500 Structures

TIME

A series of raging wildfires sweeping across the Texas Panhandle have burned through 1.26 million acres across the state and led to the death of two people.

Transcript

00:00 I have witnessed and observed some extraordinary damage in our state.

00:07 It could be caused by hurricanes or tornadoes and frequently when you see the aftermath

00:13 of that damage, there's some semblance of a structure that is still there.

00:22 When you look at the damages that have occurred here, it's just gone, completely gone.

00:31 Nothing left but ashes on the ground.

00:35 Some early and I will categorize as premature assessments show that there are about 400

00:43 to 500 structures that have been destroyed.

00:47 There's no way to say for certainty that's going to be the final number because there's

00:52 still the ongoing assessment process.

00:55 Recovery is a huge issue right now.

01:01 We have people who don't have a home, don't have a place to go to.

01:07 Their home is gone.

01:09 And we as a state, we as a community, and we as Texans need to collaborate together

01:17 to work not just on that restoration process, but that restoration process takes a while.

01:22 We need to work on the process of finding immediate and temporary housing for these

01:28 individual people.

01:30 One thing that I will be seeking to do is to make a federal disaster declaration request.

01:36 In order to be able to do that, there's a dollar amount of damages that must be shown

01:42 that has been suffered to qualify for that request.

01:47 And all of these local officials and others will be working to help aggregate the damages

01:54 that have occurred that would help qualify for federal assistance in that regard.

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