KERRVILLE, Texas  – U.S. President Donald Trump departed on Friday morning on a trip to central Texas to survey the damage caused by the July 4 flash flooding that killed at least 120 people and left dozens missing.

His visit comes at the end of a week of mounting questions about the government response to the deadly deluge, with hopes of finding any more survivors nearly diminished. Thousands of first responders have combed through muddy debris littering parts of the Texas Hill Country in the wake of the disaster, but no survivors have been founds since the day of flooding.

Last Friday, torrential rains sent a wall of water raging down the Guadalupe River in the predawn hours of the U.S. Independence Day holiday. The disaster is the deadliest of the Republican president’s nearly six-month term in office.

“It’s a horrible thing,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House on Friday. “Nobody can even believe it, such a thing – that much water that fast.”

Trump is expected to speak with family members of the victims and emergency responders when he arrives in the area of south-central Texas devastated by the flooding, according to a White House official.

He will also listen to a briefing from local officials and tour sites in Kerr County, the epicenter of the damage. The county is located in what is known as “flash flood alley”, a region that has seen some of the country’s deadliest floods.

More Than a Foot of Rain Fell in Less Than an Hour

More than a foot of rain fell in less than an hour on July 4. Flood gauges showed the river’s height rose from about a foot to 34 feet (10.4 meters) in a matter of hours, cascading over its banks and sweeping away trees and structures in its path.

Kerr County officials say more than 160 people remain unaccounted for, although experts say that the number of people reported missing in the wake of disasters is often inflated.

The dead include at least 36 children, many of whom were campers at the nearly century-old Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer retreat on the banks of the river.

Local and federal officials have faced scrutiny for their response, including questions about whether they could have done more to warn people of the rising floodwaters.

The county declined to install an early-warning system years ago after failing to secure state money to cover the cost. In an interview of NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Thursday ahead of the trip, Trump appeared to support any fresh initiative to install such alarms.

“After having seen this horrible event, I would imagine you’d put alarms up in some form,” Trump said.

The Texas state legislature will convene in a special session later this month to investigate the flooding and provide disaster relief funding.

The U.S. Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, on Monday asked a government watchdog to investigate whether cuts at the National Weather Service affected the forecasting agency’s response. The NWS has defended its forecasting and emergency management, noting it assigned extra forecasters to two Texas offices over the holiday weekend.

The Trump administration has said the agency was sufficiently staffed and responded adequately to “an act of God.” On NBC, he described the flooding as a “once-in-every-200-year event.”

Trump has also largely sidestepped questions about his plans to shrink or abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which coordinates the U.S. government’s disaster response efforts, and reassign many of its key functions to state and local governments.

“I’ll tell you some other time,” Trump said on Tuesday, when asked by a reporter about FEMA.

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(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Kerrville and Nicole Johnson in Washington; Writing by Josephy Ax; Editing by Frank McGurty and Chizu Nomiyama )