Biden and Harris visit storm-ravaged areas

RALEIGH, N.C. — President Joe Biden flew over storm-ravaged parts of western North Carolina on Wednesday, and Vice President Kamala Harris ventured farther south to Georgia to speak with emergency responders and devastated families in some of the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Helene, trying to stress to recovering communities that the federal government would be there to aid rebuilding efforts well into the future. The final weeks of the campaign for the White House find Harris and Biden juggling a trio of crises — an escalating war in the Middle East, a longshoremen’s strike that threatens to clog supply chains and the aftermath of one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history. Harris will return to the campaign trail in Midwestern battleground states later this week, but Biden will tour more storm damage in Georgia and Florida. In the storm’s wake, Harris has tried to step into a role typically played by Biden, empathizing with victims’ searing losses as she works to steer recovery efforts their way. She also highlighted efforts that state, local and federal officials had taken to deliver relief, and she stressed that the response would extend far beyond Wednesday’s trips. Advertisement “My final point to the residents of this community and this region is we are here for the long haul,” she said in Augusta. “But there’s a lot more work that will need to happen over the long run.” She said she wanted to take a firsthand look “at the devastation, which is extraordinary. It’s particularly devastating because of the loss of life this community has experienced, the loss of normalcy and the loss of critical resources.” Helene made landfall Thursday and carved a deadly path of destruction through six states, killing more than 140 people. Roy Cooper (D) said some towns had been “wiped off the map.” The federal government has surged resources to affected areas, but the Republican and Democratic campaigns for president have been on opposite sides of a debate about when is best for a high-profile politician — and the small army needed to ensconce them in a security bubble — to travel to a devastated area. Advertisement On Wednesday, six days after the storm made landfall, Biden flew in a loop over the Asheville area, looking down on gutted structures, flattened buildings and fallen trees with Asheville’s mayor, Cooper and emergency management officials. He will venture to storm-ravaged places in Georgia and Florida on Thursday and meet with people in “impacted communities,” according to the White House. The vice president toured the Augusta Emergency Operations Center, telling first responders there, “I am here to thank you and to listen.” “I’ve been reading and hearing about the work you’ve been doing over the last few days, and I think it really does represent some of the best of what we each know can be done, especially when we coordinate around local, state, federal resources to meet the needs of people who must be seen, who must be heard,” she said. Trump visited Valdosta, Ga., on Monday, using his time on the ground to criticize Harris for fundraising as the storm tore through the American South and blasting the federal government’s response as inadequate. [Elected officials are] having a very hard time getting the president on the phone,” Trump said falsely on Monday. “He won’t get on, and of course the vice president, she’s out some place campaigning, looking for money.” He also accused Biden of “sleeping” instead of talking to emergency officials and falsely said that the president was not taking calls from Georgia Gov. Advertisement Biden and Harris have said state and local leaders had asked them to hold off on visiting until emergency officials had made further progress on rescue and recovery efforts, which Harris said “must be the highest priority and the first order of business.” And on Wednesday, Biden made a show of meeting with both Democratic and Republican leaders in the Carolinas. While Harris and Biden have not directly criticized Trump, they have taken subtle digs, saying politicians should keep themselves — and their large security footprints — away from the most severely damaged places, freeing up first responders to restore services and save lives. And a half-hour after her plane touched down in the D.C. area on Monday, she was at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s headquarters, delivering a televised speech about the federal response. Biden tried to project a sense of hope even as he described the hurricane’s impact as “heartbreaking.” “Earlier, I took an aerial tour over Western North Carolina to survey the damage. That’s America.” The White House also released an update on the federal government’s response, continuing its daily practice of outlining it efforts for the public. But Biden said the longshoremen’s strike could complicate recovery efforts, making it more difficult to get crucial supplies to hard-hit areas. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/02/biden-harris-hurricane-helene/