President Donald Trump will travel to Louisiana on Saturday, the White House has confirmed, likely trekking to Lake Charles, where hundreds of Harvey evacuees are being sheltered.

"That's the tentative plan at this point," White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Thursday, confirming that the president and First Lady Melania Trump will both make the trip.

The duo is also expected to travel to the Houston area Saturday. The exact scheduling was still being finalized Thursday evening, according to the White House.

The president first hinted Monday to his plans to visit Louisiana, saying that he was looking forward to coming here this weekend if the weather allowed.

At the time, Louisiana was bracing for a much deeper impact from Harvey, which made landfall in Texas as a Category 4 hurricane on Aug. 25. It stalled over the Texas Gulf Coast for several days, dumping massive amounts of rain onto Houston and the surrounding areas.

Louisiana shelters hundreds of Harvey evacuees from Texas, prepares for more As Louisiana continues to assist Texas with its recovery from Hurricane Harvey, the state ha…

Louisiana had responders and resources positioned in case they were needed, but it was largely spared by Harvey's wrath as a significantly weakened storm crawled its way across the state.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has since shifted much of the state's efforts toward aiding Texas's rescue and recovery.

"We're going to do everything we can to be the best possible neighbors to Texas," said Edwards, who has been in regular contact with federal and state officials from Texas.

The state has called up 1,000 National Guardsmen to aid the effort, taken several hundred Texas residents into shelters in Lake Charles and Alexandria, and rescued more than 2,300 people in dangerous conditions by Thursday afternoon.

"We have a lot of capacity. At this point in time it only makes sense to accommodate as many people from Texas as they need us to accommodate," Edwards said.

The last "major hurricane," meaning Category 3 or stronger, to hit the U.S. mainland was Wilma – two months after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005.

Harvey is the country's most severe natural disaster since Trump took office in January.

The Trumps visited Corpus Christi and Austin Texas on Tuesday, largely to meet with state leaders and other emergency officials.

+6 President Trump may come to Louisiana this weekend to see impacts of Harvey President Donald Trump is planning to travel to Louisiana this weekend to see the effects of…

Trump faced some criticism for not meeting with those who have been displaced by the storm, but the White House repeatedly has defended the decision as a way to minimize his impact on emergency resources, including law enforcement still deep into rescue efforts in Houston and other hard-hit areas.

"He met with a number of state and local officials who are eating, sleeping, breathing the Harvey disaster," Sanders told reporters Wednesday after the president tweeted about witnessing the devastation "firsthand."

"He talked extensively with the governor, who certainly is right in the midst of every bit of this, as well as the mayors from several of the local towns that were hit hardest," Sanders added.

Trump, a frequent critic of predecessor Barack Obama, lambasted the then-president last August for not coming to Louisiana in the wake of historic flooding. The Republican nominee in the presidential race at the time, Trump and then-running mate Mike Pence traveled to suburban Baton Rouge to view flood-damaged homes and recovery assistance centers about a week before Obama made his own trip to Louisiana.

Several Louisiana residents had to be evacuated from low-lying areas of southwest Louisiana as roads became water covered and impassable.

Damage assessments are ongoing, but Edwards said he expects that the number of Louisiana households affected will be in the hundreds.

Five Louisiana parishes are currently under federal disaster declarations due to damage from Harvey. Edwards on Wednesday requested that seven more be added to address debris removal and emergency operations needs after heavy rains and high winds. Those requests remain under review, Edwards said.

Assessments are also being conducted to determine the impact to Louisiana's agriculture industry. Southwest Louisiana farms remained water logged this week, and cattle and other livestock could be seen gathered on dry patches as the governor flew the area in a helicopter Wednesday.

Louisiana Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain said he traveled to Washington on Wednesday to meet with federal officials about the possible impact on crops in Louisiana and Texas.

"It will take us a couple of weeks to know the exact extent of the damage," he said.