Another Texas police officer left the city while the state was hit by severe winter weather, it appeared this week.
Republican State Representative Gary Gates is on fire after he flew his private plane to Orlando, Florida on Wednesday, while his constituents in Fort Bend County were fighting without water and electricity, the Houston Chronicle reported.
“It would have been nice to have a state representative to help with the ground, work at a heating center, pack food, etc., rather than leave immediately (to fly) on a private plane when things go wrong. “They made it difficult,” Brian Walz, one of Gates’ electorate, told the newspaper. “My neighbors didn’t get to do that when his pipe exploded.”
Gates claimed that the pipes also broke out in his house, and 30% of his house was flooded, insisting to the outlet that the exit was necessary because of his sick wife and his daughter with special needs.
“My wife is recovering from a two-week illness, and my mentally handicapped adult daughter’s room, which still lives with us, has been flooded,” Gates told the newspaper.
But Fort Bend Star reporter Stefan Modrich he said on Twitter that Gates’ chief of staff told him the representative was on a business trip to Florida, meeting with a “major supplier.”
Gates, who owns several apartment buildings in Houston, told the Chronicle that he met a salesman while in Florida, but only because he was already there.
He insisted he was able to monitor the power outage crisis in Lonestar, Florida.
The criticism follows the revelation that Senator Ted Cruz flew to Cancun, Mexico, with his family, while much of the state lost power and water problems were on the rise.
He returned the day after he was convicted of jumping into the city while the state was in crisis and later admitted the trip was a mistake.