Biden travels to the Carolinas and Kamala Harris to Georgia to view damage from Hurricane Helene

Biden travels to the Carolinas and Kamala Harris to Georgia to view damage from Hurricane Helene

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will take separate tours Wednesday of the catastrophic damage caused by Hurricane Helene, which left at least 150 people dead.

Biden is expected to visit North Carolina and South Carolina days after the storm ripped through Florida and moved north, causing damage as far away as Tennessee and Virginia.

Harris will visit Georgia, which former President Donald Trump visited on Monday and where he criticized Harris and the Biden administration for their response to the hurricane.

Biden is first scheduled to land in Greenville, South Carolina, where he will take an aerial tour of the storm damage. He will then travel to Raleigh, North Carolina, to be briefed at the emergency operations center and then take a tour of Asheville, one of the areas most affected by flooding.

The storm caused severe damage in the western North Carolina city, leaving many residents without running water, electricity and access to cell phones and internet.

The federal government has helped states reopen roads, clear debris, restore power, support search and rescue efforts and bring cell phone networks back online, Biden said Monday during a virtual meeting with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper , and Deanne Criswell, North Carolina Administrator of the 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 hell of a long time and it’s going to require a significant amount of resources,” Biden said.

Cooper said the federal government is helping distribute medical resources as well as providing helicopters for land bridges and search and rescue missions.

Criswell has been based in the Appalachian region of North Carolina since Biden ordered her to remain there for the foreseeable future on Monday. More than 1,200 employees from FEMA and other agencies were in North Carolina as of Tuesday, according to the White House. At least 25 trailer loads of meals and 60 trailer loads of water were delivered to the state.

The White House said Harris would be briefed on site about recovery efforts during her visit to Georgia. Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, will also “provide updates on federal actions being taken to support emergency response and recovery efforts in Georgia and several other states throughout the Southeast,” according to the White House. Harris visited FEMA headquarters on Monday and received a debriefing on the hurricane's impact.

A White House official said Harris will travel to North Carolina in the coming days. The White House also said Biden would travel to Georgia and Florida “as soon as possible.”

Trump visited Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday, where he falsely claimed that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp had been unable to reach Biden. He had also said in an interview recorded before his visit to Georgia that the Biden-Harris administration was “doing everything possible to hurt rural Trump voters” by avoiding offering aid to Republican areas of the state.

In response to Trump's criticism and suggestions that the administration was not doing enough, the White House released detailed lists of steps the federal government has taken in each state to deal with the devastation.

“He’s lying,” Biden said Monday when asked to respond to Trump’s accusations that he is ignoring the disaster. “Let me be clear: He is lying, and the governor told him he was lying. The governor told him he was lying.”

Biden said FEMA moved a lot of supplies from Florida to Tennessee before the storm, so “the idea that we weren't prepared – the question is that no one knew exactly how devastating it was going to be.” We knew it would be significant, and we have already prepared a lot, but there is more.”

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