Lawmakers Visit Lufkin to Discuss Wildfire Response

LUFKIN � Two Texas congressmen visited with county judges, officials and first responders from the Deep East Texas region in Lufkin on Wednesday in an effort to improve the federal government�s response to disasters. That’s according to KETK and the Lufkin Daily News. U.S. Rep. Michael T. McCaul (R-Austin), chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Management, is investigating whether FEMA�s response was fast enough after fires broke out this month in several areas of the state. He was joined by Louie Gohmert (R-Tyler).

�Part of my role is to examine these fires that took place in the state of Texas and provide the oversight on how we can do these things better. I�ve been all over the state of Texas talking with local people about the response to these fires, and Bastrop was the one that was most devastating. But we can do a better job,� McCaul said. �It took a Bastrop to get these aviation assets into the state. It shouldn�t have taken that long. What I�ll be examining is FEMA�s response � why we didn�t get those aviation assets sooner.�

Gohmert said the meeting with area county judges was productive and that the information learned would be taken back to Congress. �When you have people from the counties that have been most affected by the wildfires, they know what good things have been done and they also know what the problems are,� Gohmert said. �You also get valuable input from the folks here on how we can streamline things, to get help immediately where it needs to go, so we can reduce the amount of suffering that goes on.�