President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris every journey to the storm-ravaged Southeast on Wednesday, because the dying toll and devastation from Hurricane Helene soars and a few million folks stay with out energy and operating water.
Over 160 folks have been killed by Helene since the hurricane made landfall in Florida late Thursday earlier than tearing a path of destruction by the inside Southeast. The storm sparked tens of millions of energy outages and billions of {dollars} in property harm because it smashed by the southern Appalachian Mountains and into the Tennessee Valley.
Because the floodwaters from the storm receded, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper lamented that within the western a part of his state “communities have been wiped off the map.”
NORTH CAROLINA RESIDENTS FIGHT FOR THEIR SURVIVAL
North Carolina and Georgia, which was additionally laborious hit by the storm, are two of the seven key battlegrounds whose razor-thin margins determined Biden’s 2020 election victory over former President Trump and are anticipated to find out the result of the 2024 showdown between Harris and Trump.
Flood harm at a bridge throughout Mill Creek within the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on Sept. 30, 2024, in Outdated Fort, North Carolina. ( Sean Rayford/Getty Pictures)
And with a margin-of-error race between the vice chairman and Trump with lower than 5 weeks to go till Election Day on Nov. 5, and with the previous president throughout a visit to the storm-damaged area earlier this week blasting each Biden and Harris over the federal response, the hurricane has turn into front-and-center within the White Home race.
The president on Wednesday heads to North Carolina, the place he’ll survey harm from a helicopter flight over the town of Ashville, one of many hardest hit areas. Biden may also go to a rescue command middle within the state earlier than additionally stopping in neighboring South Carolina.
“My high precedence is to make sure the communities devastated by this hurricane get the assistance and assist they want as shortly as attainable,” Biden instructed reporters Tuesday as he spoke throughout a Cupboard assembly specializing in the federal response.
Trump this previous weekend accused the president of “sleeping” at his seashore home in Delaware because the storm blasted the Southeast.
And talking with reporters as he arrived in Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday, the previous president charged that “the federal authorities is just not being responsive.”
Former President Trump speaks outdoors the Chez What furnishings retailer as he visits Valdosta, Georgia, a city hit laborious by Hurricane Helene, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. (AP Picture/Evan Vucci)
And he falsely claimed that Biden had not spoken with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a conservative Republican.
Pushing again towards the political assaults, Biden has famous that he was on the telephone with federal, state and native officers all through the weekend and returned to the nation’s capital on Sunday afternoon to observe storm rescue and aid efforts.
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“We had over 1,000 federal personnel, together with search and rescue groups, on the prepared on the bottom earlier than it hit,” the president stated on Tuesday. “Over the previous a number of days, I have been in common contact with the governors, the mayors, the county officers, and all of the affected areas. That features Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Virginia.”
And Biden emphasised that his administration has despatched “each accessible useful resource that we now have at our disposal to the affected area” and pledged “we’ll be there till this work is completed.”
President Biden speaks throughout a briefing on the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene within the Roosevelt Room of the White Home, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, as Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, left, and Secretary of Homeland Safety Alejandro Mayorkas pay attention. (AP Picture/Mark Schiefelbein)
Trump on Sunday attacked Harris for attending “fundraising occasions together with her radical left lunatic donors” in California over the weekend. And he argued that Harris “should be down within the space” the place the storm induced destruction.
On Monday throughout his cease in Georgia, Trump repeated the dig, saying, “The vice chairman, she’s out someplace campaigning searching for cash.”
The White Home has highlighted that the vice chairman over the weekend was on the telephone with federal, state and native officers.
Harris stated on Saturday that she and the president “stay dedicated to making sure that no group or state has to answer this catastrophe alone.”
On Monday, Harris visited FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency] headquarters in Washington, D.C., the place she acquired a briefing on aid and rescue efforts.
“We are going to do every little thing in our energy to assist communities reply and get well,” Harris vowed.
Harris on Wednesday travels to Georgia to survey the impacts of the storm and obtain an on-the-ground briefing and supply updates on the federal response.
Harris was initially scheduled to participate Wednesday in a marketing campaign bus swing by central Pennsylvania, one other key battleground state, together with her operating mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
With the vice chairman headed to Georgia, Walz will headline the bus tour, which comes the day after he confronted off within the operating mates debate towards Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the GOP vice presidential nominee.
Throughout his Monday cease in Georgia, Trump highlighted that “I’ve come to Valdosta with massive semi-trucks, a lot of them, full of aid support. A tanker truck crammed up with gasoline, a few huge tanker vans crammed up with gasoline, which they can not get now. And we’ll be working to distribute it all through the day.”
And a GoFundMe web page arrange by the Trump marketing campaign earlier this week has raised practically $4 million up to now for storm victims.
Presidents and vice presidents usually do not journey instantly to storm-damaged areas, to forestall their journeys from hampering badly wanted rescue and aid efforts.
“I am dedicated to touring to the impacted areas as quickly as attainable, however I have been instructed that it could be disruptive if I did it proper now. We is not going to try this on the threat of diverting or delaying any of the response property wanted to take care of this disaster,” Biden instructed reporters on Monday.
And Harris stated on Tuesday, “I plan to be on the bottom as quickly as attainable – however as quickly as attainable with out disrupting any emergency response operations, as a result of that have to be the best precedence and the primary order of enterprise.”
However the optics of Trump’s Monday cease in Georgia might have put some political stress on Biden and Harris.
Longtime Republican strategist David Kochel stated Trump had been “very aggressive” along with his fast journey to the storm-damaged area.
“I feel he put quite a lot of stress on them to attempt to do one thing,” Kochel, a veteran of quite a few GOP presidential campaigns, instructed Fox Information. “He’s on the market pushing a line that they don’t care – they’re not doing something and I feel they’re reacting to it.”
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The response by elected officers to pure disasters can influence their political standing.
President George W. Bush was closely criticized in the summertime of 2005 for his preliminary response to Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans.
And Trump confronted criticism early in his White Home tenure as Puerto Rico struggled to get well from a robust storm. The president was pilloried for throwing paper towels to the gang as he stopped by a aid middle throughout a storm-related go to to the island.
