WASHINGTON — President Trump traveled to storm-brushed Corpus Christi, Tex., on Tuesday to survey some of the damage caused by Tropical Storm Harvey and demonstrate his personal commitment to a region still in the grips of a historic natural disaster.

Mr. Trump, who pushed aides to schedule a trip to Texas as early as possible after Harvey made landfall there on Friday night, settled on visiting Corpus Christi because it was the closest he could get to the hardest-hit areas without disrupting recovery efforts, according to state officials. The port city of 325,000 is 30 miles from the most severely affected parts of the Gulf Coast, and suffered relatively light damage from the initial impact of the storm.

After meeting at a Corpus Christi firehouse with state and federal officials, the president flew to Austin, Tex., for another meeting with officials involved in responding to the flooding before returning to Washington.

Members of Mr. Trump’s staff said the trip was mainly a humanitarian mission and that the president winced while watching televised scenes of ruin and rescue on the flooded streets of Houston on his way to Corpus Christi. But they conceded that the stakes were high for Mr. Trump on his first visit to a disaster area that was inevitably seen as a test of his competence and empathy.