Trump and Pence visited the flood-damaged areas of Louisiana today, while Obama golfed.

Trump and Pence visited the flood-damaged areas of Louisiana today, while Obama golfed.

Molly Hennessy-Fiske reports in the LA Times,

The Rev. Tony Perkins, whose home flooded, invited Trump to draw attention to the disaster by visiting the area. In June, Perkins helped coordinate a meeting with the candidate and evangelical leaders.

Perkins, president of the conservative Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council, took Trump to see flooded homes and introduced him to victims who shared their stories, including an elderly man rescued from the roof of the home where he was born.

As he met with victims, Perkins said Trump asked about recovery efforts. “He thinks in terms of not just what the government can do, but what people can do,” Perkins said, including churches.

Pam West, 63, came to see Trump at the church after her nearby home flooded. Her Grand Marquis is packed with salvaged clothes and jewelry while she and her husband stay with a cousin. The couple had to be rescued by boat. They never had been impacted by flooding before and have no flood insurance.

She called Trump’s visit “awesome. … Our own dear president is too busy at Martha’s Vineyard to visit us,” West said as she picked up a box of donated toiletries from a Samaritan’s Purse truck parked outside. “I’m hoping a lot of people who were going to vote for Hillary will see he came and vote for him. He’s our only hope.”

Read more here.