Another policy from Texas skipped the city while the state was paralyzed by severe winter weather, it emerged this week.
Republican Rep. Gary Gates is under fire after he flew his private jet to Orlando, Florida on Wednesday while his voters in Fort Bend County struggled without water and power, the Houston Chronicle reported.
“It would have been really nice to help a state representative on the ground, work at a heating center, pack food, etc., rather than immediately (flying) with a private plane when it’s going hard, “Brian Walz, one of Gates’ voters, told the newspaper. “My neighbors could not do it when her pipe burst.”
Gates claims that the pipes also burst in his home, and that 30 percent of his home was flooded, insisting that the outing be made necessary because of his sick wife and his daughter with special needs.
“My wife is still recovering from an illness she has been struggling with for two weeks, and the room of my adult daughter, who is mentally handicapped and still lives with us, was flooded,” Gates told the newspaper.
But Fort Bend Star reporter Stefan Modrich said on Twitter that Gates’ chief of staff informed him that the representative was on a business trip to Florida, with a ‘big seller’.
Gates, who owns several apartment buildings in Houston, told Chronicle he did meet with a seller while he was in Florida, but that was only because he was already there.
He insisted he could monitor Lonestar State’s power outage crisis from Florida.
The criticism follows the revelation that Senator Ted Cruz flew with his family to Cancun, Mexico, while much of the state remained without power and water problems increased.
He returned the next day after being chastised for skipping the city while the state was in crisis, and later admitted the trip was a mistake.