Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price Thomas (Tom) Edmunds PriceConspicuous by their absence from the Republican Convention Coronavirus Report: The Hill's Steve Clemons interviews Chris Christie Trump flails as audience dwindles and ratings plummet MORE on Monday defended Texas officials who did not order an evacuation in the wake of a Category 4 hurricane hitting the state, saying "pointing fingers at this point is not helpful at all."

The secretary argued that a large-scale evacuation in the Houston and southeastern Texas region would've been an impossible feat and an inadequate solution when preparing for the charging storm.

"I think it is important for people to appreciate the magnitude of this storm," Price said on NBC's "Today" show.

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"There are 12 million individuals who are in the area where the storm is currently and has gone through. So you can’t evacuate 12 million people," Price said.

Price said his own department, which has also declared a public health crisis, has "pre-deployed more individuals to the area than ever before in any emergency."

"The federal government is doing all that we can to assist again the local county and state officials. But this is still in the rescue phase and we continue to support those individuals," he continued.

Houston and the surrounding areas hit by the storm have largely shut down as a result of flooding.

"We are talking about water, rainfall in terms of the feet, not in inches," Price said, calling the storm "remarkable" in its power.