“We love you, you are special, we are here to take care of you. It’s going well,” declared Donald Trump Tuesday, offering his rally-like liturgy while balanced on a ladder wedged between two trucks at a fire station in Texas. He was wearing a white U.S.A. cap, available on his campaign Web site for $40, and waving a Texas flag. “What a crowd,” he added, to loud cheers from a crowd of supporters and a spattering of jeers. “What a turnout!”

It was not the only discordant moment the optics-obsessed president squeezed into his day-long trip to Corpus Christi, near where Hurricane Harvey swept ashore Friday night, and later to the more inland Austin. Trump did not meet any of the victims of the natural disaster or see any signs of its devastation, but he did dwell on the name Harvey: “Probably there has never been anything so expensive in our country’s history, we’ve never done anything so historic in terms of damage and in terms of ferocity as what we’ve witnessed with Harvey,” he said, turning to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. “It sounds like such an innocent name, Ben, right, but it’s not innocent.”

Trump did not mention the Houston police officer who drowned in the floodwaters while driving to work, whose death was announced that same afternoon. Instead, he spoke effusively about the success of the ongoing recovery efforts, praised Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Brock Long for becoming practically “famous” during his repeated TV appearances, and did all but declare the mission accomplished. “We won’t say congratulations,” he said in Austin, turning to Texas Governor Greg Abbott. “We don’t want to do that. We don’t want to congratulate. We’ll congratulate each other when it’s all finished.”

That the president’s trip was quintessentially Trumpian is unsurprising. He had already prefaced his arrival with a series of excitable, exclamation-ridden tweets (“Wow - Now experts are calling #Harvey a once in 500 year flood!”); a natural disaster and a presidential windbreaker were unlikely to change the broad color of his character, nor that of his wife, who spiked numerous eyebrows by boarding Air Force One in a pair of altitudinous stilettos.

Still, officials saw the storm as a way for Trump to demonstrate management and leadership skills, which, following a summer marked by a catalogue of scandals (from Charlottesville to Anthony Scaramucci’s magniloquent 10 days in government), are traits that have been in short supply of late.

“The president wants to be very cautious about making sure that any activity doesn’t disrupt any of the recovery efforts,” said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Air Force One, as Trump’s entourage made their way down to Texas. Abbott, flanking Trump throughout the day, emphasized repeatedly that the administration has been in touch every day since the storm hit, and the president has frequently called him personally to ask questions. A senior administration official told Politico that Trump had become minutely obsessed with forecasts. An adviser gushed that Trump had instructed his Cabinet “that everyone is focused on this.”

And for good reason: while the eventual scope of the catastrophe is unknown, the current flooding is unprecedented. As the rain continues to pummel Texas, heading northeast towards neighboring Louisiana, Houston and the surrounding areas are braced for further damage. The area is home to millions, and nobody has a clear idea of how many people are missing or how many are trapped in their homes. It is “one of the largest disasters America has ever faced,” said Abbott, warning that the prospect of an imminent recovery is unrealistic, as the cleanup operation will take years and cost billions. “We need to recognize it will be a new normal, a new and different normal for this entire region.”