Biden assesses Florida’s Hurricane Idalia destruction, calls for increased FEMA funding.
President Biden Surveys Hurricane Idalia Damage in Florida
President Joe Biden visited Florida on Sept. 2 to survey the damage from Hurricane Idalia, and meet with survivors and recovery crews.
Hurricane Idalia made landfall along Florida’s Big Bend region as a Category 3 storm on the morning of Aug. 30, with high winds and significant storm surge.
The state faced widespread flooding and damage before Idalia weakened as she moved northeast toward Georgia and the Carolinas.
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President Biden took an aerial tour and received a briefing from local officials and first responders in Live Oak, a town hit hard by the storm.
“I’m here today to deliver a clear message to the people of Florida and throughout the Southeast,” he said after a walking tour of Live Oak. He pledged the federal government’s total support for Floridians.
“As I’ve told your governor, if there’s anything your state needs, I’m ready to mobilize that support,” he continued. “Anything they need related to these storms. Your nation has your back and we’ll be with you until the job is done.’’
He spoke outdoors near a church that had parts of its sheet metal roof peeled back by Idalia’s powerful winds and a home half crushed by a fallen tree.
The White House has requested from Congress an extra $4 billion for FEMA’s natural disaster responses, after having requested $12 billion. This would raise the sum requested to $16 billion—part of an overall $40 billion stopgap funding request.
President reiterated the request for funding on Sept. 2.
“These crises are affecting more and more Americans, and every American regularly expects FEMA to show up when they are needed,” he said in Florida, reported CNBC. “I’m calling on the United States Congress, Democrats and Republicans, to ensure the funding is there.”
Florida Governor Absent
While President Biden said he would be meeting with Gov. Ron DeSantis, the governor’s office issued a statement on Sept. 1 saying no such plans had been made. Mr. DeSantis declined to join President Biden and suggested that doing so could interfere with recovery efforts.
“In these rural communities, and so soon after impact, the security preparations alone that would go into setting up such a meeting would shut down ongoing recovery efforts,” Jeremy Redfern, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis, said in a statement.
Mr. DeSantis, when asked about the impending visit on Sept. 1, told reporters that he’d mentioned to President Biden over the phone that “it would be very disruptive to have the whole security apparatus that goes” with the president “because there are only so many ways to get into” many of the hardest hit areas.
“What we want to do is make sure that the power restoration continues and the relief efforts continue and we don’t have any interruption in that,” the governor added.
On Sept. 2, Deanne Criswell, who leads the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), told reporters while President Biden was en route from Washington that her team and the governor’s team had “worked collectively” in making the decision for the president to visit Live Oak. Furthermore, she stated that her teams “have heard no concerns over any impact to the communities that we’re going to visit today.”
President Biden and Mr. DeSantis had met in the past—in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in 2022, and the Surfside condo collapse in Miami Beach in 2021.
But now, Mr. DeSantis is running as a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, and President Biden is seeking reelection.
President Biden said he was not disappointed by the turn of events, but welcomed the presence of Sen. Rick Scott, one of the state’s two Republican U.S. senators. Mr. Scott praised President Biden for having declared a federal disaster declaration relatively early.
“It was a big deal. These are not rich communities. Many of them struggle to make ends meet,” Mr. Scott said.
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