Texas tea party Rep. Blake Farenthold (R), who represents an area that is directly in the path of Hurricane Harvey—and was also, unrelatedly, recently called “so unattractive it’s unbelievable” by Sen. Susan Collins, whom he offered to duel—just gave an interview on live television to discuss his district’s preparedness for what is expected to become a “life-threatening” Category 3 hurricane. Farenthold did not make a particularly convincing case, as he did not even seem to have an umbrella on hand.
“We’ve worked really hard to get ready here in Corpus Christi. The houses are boarded, people in low-lying areas are evacuated—now we’ve just gotta hunker down and see what happens,” Farenthold said, swirling tendrils of drenched combover clinging to his forehead.
Farenthold isn’t necessarily the first guy you’d want on the front lines of this thing—he has called climate change a “scare tactic used by groups with a political agenda,” though it’s brought warmer air, warmer water and sea level rise to his state, all factors that could intensify the storm currently dumping buckets onto Farenthold’s unprotected head.
“You need to heed evacuation orders, there’s no doubt about that. But we Texans are resilient, and we’ll help our neighbors out,” he predicted, also noting that “I’ve got a friend down the street who’s got a full-power generator for his house.”
