President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to tour the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene on Wednesday, which has claimed the lives of at least 150 people.
Biden will travel to North Carolina and South Carolina, following the hurricane’s path after it hit Florida and moved north, affecting areas as far as Tennessee and Virginia.
Meanwhile, Harris will visit Georgia, where former President Donald Trump toured on Monday and criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the hurricane response.
Biden’s itinerary includes arriving first in Greenville, South Carolina, where he will take an aerial tour of the storm damage. He will then head to Raleigh, North Carolina, for a briefing at the emergency operations center and will later survey Asheville, one of the regions hardest hit by flooding.
In Asheville, residents are facing severe challenges, with many lacking access to clean water, electricity, and communication services. The federal government has been working to assist states by reopening roads, clearing debris, restoring power, aiding in search-and-rescue missions, and helping reconnect cell networks, Biden said in a virtual meeting on Monday with North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell.
I want you to know the administration will be there until the job is done. It’s going to take a long time and a significant amount of resources, Biden said.
Governor Cooper added that federal support is helping provide medical supplies, helicopters for land bridges, and additional resources for search-and-rescue efforts.
Criswell, who has been stationed in the Appalachia region of North Carolina since Monday, has overseen FEMA’s operations in the area. As of Tuesday, more than 1,200 FEMA and other federal personnel were assisting in North Carolina, and shipments of food and water have already been delivered to the state.
While Harris is in Georgia, she will receive a briefing on recovery efforts and provide updates on federal actions supporting the region. Harris, who visited FEMA headquarters on Monday, will travel to North Carolina in the coming days, and Biden plans to visit Georgia and Florida as soon as possible, according to the White House.
During his visit to Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday, Trump falsely claimed that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp had been unable to reach Biden and accused the administration of neglecting Republican-leaning areas.
In response, the White House released detailed summaries of federal relief efforts in each state affected by the storm. Biden dismissed Trump’s allegations, saying, He is lying. The governor told him he was lying.
Biden emphasized that FEMA had prepared in advance by pre-positioning resources from Florida to Tennessee. The idea that we weren’t prepared isn’t true. We had significant resources in place, but the full extent of the storm’s impact was difficult to predict, he said.