Governor Greg Abbott tours areas hit by Hurricane Harvey

By a quirk of fate, people in Galveston County are getting emergency food food stamps called D-SNAP in of all places a former grocery store. But not everyone is focusing on the irony.

"I wish it had been coming sooner. We got a lot of assistance from churches and donations. It's kind of a hassle and embarrassing to ask people for help," said aid recipient Matthew Lenoue.

The D-SNAP centers opened in Galveston and Wharton counties on Monday, six weeks after Harvey hit and weeks after they opened in other counties. Wharton Mayor Tim Barker says over one-third of the homes got water in them. The need is here.

"I wish it had been faster. I'm not going to criticize but we're just glad it's here now. We need the help. There's a lot of devastation around here," he said.

He is just one of the many local officials who met with Governor Abbott as he toured the area to see how disaster relief is going and what the current needs are. While in Wharton the governor talked about flood mitigation efforts and rebuilding, but he deflected criticism of the rollout of D-SNAP.

"We want to make sure their needs are addressed and we're going to stay here and make sure their needs are addressed," said the governor. When asked about why it took so long to reach here he replied, "Again we are going to continue working the process and make sure their needs are addressed."

But not everyone is complaining, some are just grateful the help is here.

"Even with it being six weeks after at least they did something," said one woman who only would identify herself as Shirley.

The Governor's Office sent FOX 26 this statement: 

We've been working on rolling out D-SNAP in the 39 eligible. We worked closely with local officials to identify sites as quickly as possible that would work with for the local community, given the surge of people expected to show up at the sites. We got D-SNAP up and running as quickly as possible locally. As you may know, D-SNAP is really the last phase of recovery, meant to be triggered after people are back in their homes, moving forward and grocery channels are fully operational.