President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to separately tour Wednesday the devastation caused by Hurricane Helen, which killed at least 150 people.
Biden is expected to visit North Carolina and South Carolina days after the storm hit Florida and moved north, causing damage as far as Tennessee and Virginia.
Harris will visit Georgia, where former President Donald Trump visited on Monday and criticized Harris and the Biden administration for their response to the hurricanes. She is scheduled to visit Augusta, a city near the South Carolina border, where she will provide an update on federal efforts to support the state.
Biden is scheduled to land first in Greenville, South Carolina, where he will participate in an aerial inspection of storm damage. They will then head to Raleigh, North Carolina, where they will be briefed at an emergency operations center and then take an aerial tour of Asheville, one of the areas hardest hit by flooding.
The storm caused severe damage in the western North Carolina city, leaving many residents without water, electricity, cell phone service or internet access.
Biden said Monday during a virtual meeting with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and DeAnne Criswell that the federal government will help states reopen roads, clear debris, restore power, assist with search and rescue operations, and support cell phone networks. He said he is supporting the recovery of the area. Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“I want you to know that the government will be there…until we get the job done. It’s going to take a tremendous amount of time and a tremendous amount of resources,” Biden said.
Cooper said the federal government is supporting overpasses and helicopters for search and rescue operations, as well as the dissemination of medical resources.
Ms. Criswell has been based in the Appalachian region of North Carolina since Mr. Biden on Monday directed her to remain there for the time being. More than 1,200 FEMA and other agency workers were in North Carolina as of Tuesday, and at least 25 trailers of meals and 60 trailers of water had been delivered to the state, the White House said.
The White House announced that Harris will receive an on-site briefing on recovery efforts during her visit to Georgia. According to the White House, Democratic presidential candidate Harris also “provided an update on federal actions being taken to support emergency response and recovery efforts in Georgia and several other Southeastern states.” The plan is to do so. Harris visited FEMA headquarters on Monday and received additional briefing on the effects of the hurricane.
White House officials said Harris will visit North Carolina in the coming days. The White House also said Biden will visit Georgia and Florida “as soon as possible.”
President Trump visited Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday and falsely claimed that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp was unable to contact Biden. He also said in an interview recorded before his trip to Georgia that the Biden-Harris administration is “going out of its way to hurt” rural Trump voters by avoiding providing aid to Republican areas in the state.
In response to President Trump’s criticisms and suggestions that the administration is not doing enough, the White House released a detailed list of steps the federal government has taken to address the devastation in states.
Asked Monday to respond to Trump’s accusations of ignoring the disaster, Biden said, “He’s lying.” “Let me be clear: he’s lying, and the governor told him he was lying. The governor told him he was lying.”
Biden said that because FEMA pre-positioned so much material from Florida to Tennessee before the storm, “the idea was that we were unprepared. The question is how devastating it would be.” I mean, nobody knew exactly what it was going to be. We knew it was going to be important,” Biden said. Much is already in place, but there is more to come. ”
Contributed by Tara Prindiville.
