A top White House adviser on Friday urged people in Texas and Louisiana to take Hurricane Harvey seriously, pleading for residents to listen to state and local officials as the potentially catastrophic storm approaches.

“This is a serious storm, as you’ve seen from the reporting,” Thomas P. Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, said at a briefing Friday afternoon. “This could remain a dangerous storm for several days, and certainly we don’t want to lose any life.”

Bossert said President Trump is considering signing a disaster declaration Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) requested on Friday. In a letter to Trump, Abbott said that due to the increasingly dire forecasts, it appears Texas will be unable to fully handle the necessary emergency response.

“Hurricane Harvey’s rapid intensification has furthermore resulted in strained resources,” Abbott wrote to Trump. “Considering time sensitivity and anticipated geographic scale of the storm, the scope of this event will rapidly overwhelm the state’s ability to provide response and recovery assets to save Texans and protect property and critical infrastructure.”

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said later at the same briefing that Trump was contemplating visiting Texas sometime early next week, though she did not provide more specific information.

Trump, who on Friday left the White House for Camp David, has been “actively engaged” with state and local officials, Bossert said, adding the president has spoken with Abbott as well as and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D). Vice President Pence is staying in Washington to monitor the situation and coordinate with the president, a spokesman said.

Bossert also told people not to tune out officials, saying: “Now is not the time to lose faith in your government institutions.”

When asked later in the briefing if that comment was related to rhetoric from the Trump administration, which has been sharply critical of government agencies and officials, Bossert said that he was only speaking from his “own personal experience” in emergency management. Rather than being concerned about people listening to federal officials, he said, the importance was that those in the storm’s path listen to their state and local authorities.

“If they’re asking you to evacuate and do it now, listen to their advice,” Bossert said.