President Donald Trump on Friday toured the damage where at least 120 people died in floods last weekend — many of them children — and with many more still missing. “It’s hard to believe the devastation,” Trump said. “Trees that are 100 years old just ripped out of the ground. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve seen a lot of bad ones. I’ve gone to a lot of hurricanes, a lot of tornadoes. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

He and first lady Melania Trump met with affected families and later spoke about how difficult it was to find the right words, when condolences didn’t seem enough.

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“I mean, look, they’ve been devastated. They lost their child or two children, and just hard to believe … a little narrow river that becomes a monster,” he said.

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At least 173 people are known to be missing after widespread flash flooding tore through Central Texas last weekend, killing at least 36 children as rising waters in some cases ripped through summer camps while they slept.

“Unfortunately, they’re still looking. They’re still looking. There’s a lot of missing children,” Trump said, pledging that search teams would find everybody. “But it’s not an easy thing. You would think it would be easy. It’s very tough.”

The day felt like a tragic traditional rite for a community in mourning, with Trump presiding as state and local officials took turns acknowledging the heartbreak, thanking first responders and pledging unconditional support as Texas Hill Country works to rebuild. But Trump did things his way, with television host Dr. Phil on hand at a roundtable to discuss grief and several asides.

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When a reporter asked the president to respond to concerns about whether flood warnings should have come sooner, he bristled and ridiculed the question.

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“Everyone did an incredible job under the circumstances,” he said, adding that “only a very evil person would ask a question like that.”

Later, however, he suggested that there were some lessons that could be learned and acknowledged a need to improve warning systems. On Wednesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) called a special legislative session in part to scrutinize the state’s flood warning and emergency communication systems.

“We’re going to work on every single solution to make sure things like this don’t happen again,” Abbott said.

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Kerr County officials had the technology to turn every cellphone in the river valley into a blaring alarm but local officials did not do so before or during the early morning hours of July 4 as river levels rose to record heights, a Washington Post examination found.

During his remarks Friday, Trump also praised the work done by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a government agency that he once vowed to abolish and have states run disaster responses instead. He has since moved away from those plans.

“Some good people are running FEMA. It’s about time, right?” Trump said. “We got some good ones.”

A president who has made cutting federal spending and consolidating its agencies a major part of his agenda also complimented Texas for how it was using federal resources.

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“You know, we give them a lot of money, but they spend it wisely,” he said. “I can’t say that’s true always. Sometimes we give money and they don’t spend it so wisely. They spend it very, very foolishly.”

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The first lady was at Trump’s side throughout the visit and spoke briefly during a roundtable discussion.

She said she prayed with and hugged the families who lost loved ones, and met several young girls from a nearby summer camp, Camp Mystic, who gave her a bracelet in honor of the dozens of children who died during the flooding.

“We are here to honor them and also to give the support, help. And I will be back. I promise to them,” she said. “And I just pray for them and giving them my strength and love.”

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As Trump toured the area, a small group convened near a chain-link fence that had been decorated with flowers and photographs of the dead and missing.

Many said they had come for the chance to see Trump, although they weren’t sure if he would stop by the makeshift memorial that people were calling the “River of Angels.”

“I would just thank him for coming and talking to the first responders and showing an interest,” said Helen Whealdon, 80, a retired police department employee from San Antonio who came to Kerrville for the chance to see the president.

“This is a disaster,” she said. “I just hope they’re able to find all the people.”

Others were more frustrated with the government’s response to the floods.

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“I’d like to holler at him and tell him, ‘no taxation without FEMA,’” said Claudio Gonzalez, 78, a retiree from Kerrville who worked in agricultural toxicology and described himself as an outlier for his criticism in an area where many people love Trump.

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Gonzalez, who identifies as Mexican American, said he was upset by the administration’s push to deport more undocumented immigrants. Regardless, he still wanted to come see the president in his hometown.

“He’s our leader; what can you do?” Gonzalez said. “We’ve got him for three and a half more years. We’re just going to have to suffer it. Nothing we can do about it.”