The hurricane Helene has left a trail of death and devastation as it passes through the southeastern United States. The death toll has skyrocketed to 215, making the storm the deadliest to hit the continental United States since the disaster. Katrinain 2005. The hurricane has also left a bitter political confrontation just over a month before the presidential elections in the United States. This Thursday, during his visit to the affected areas of Florida and Georgia, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, asked to leave politics aside from the tragedy.
The Republican candidate, former President Donald Trump, spewed lies to try to gain political advantage from the disaster. Biden accused him of lying and the Republican governors and mayors themselves rejected his accusations that the federal government had inhibited itself, that Biden was “sleeping” and untraceable during the worst of the crisis and that the Democrats had given the order not to help Republican voting areas.
This Thursday, Biden visited precisely the affected areas of two States with Republican governors: Florida and Georgia. The day before he had visited North Carolina and South Carolina, the other two most affected states. Biden has flown to Tallahasee, the capital of Florida, and from there he has flown by helicopter over Perry, the area where Helene It made landfall last Thursday. He then visited a very affected neighborhood in Keaton Beach accompanied by Republican Senator Rick Scott, although he did not meet the governor, Ron DeSantis.
He then traveled to Valdosta (Georgia), the place that Trump visited on Monday and where he launched his attacks against the president. Then he visited the Shiloh Pecan farm, in Georgia, affected by the storm. Biden has assured there that, in times like this, “it is time to put politics aside.” He has assured that he is committed to being president for the entire country. Although they are “separate States” that have been affected, they are all part of “the United States of America.” “It is not one State against another: it is the United States,” he insisted.
“I see you, I hear you, I agree with you,” he told the attendees. The president has promised that the federal government would continue providing aid until normality was restored in the community. “Our job is to help as many people as we can,” he said. And he has insisted that partisan politics should not be part of this conversation. “We have to end this rabid partisanship that exists. I say it sincerely. It has no reason to exist,” he stated.
Despite his words, Biden had not resisted attacking his political rival before, in response to a message about how Trump from the White House used federal aid for partisan purposes, something that Republicans deny. “You can’t help those in need only if they voted for you. “It’s the most basic part of being president, and this guy doesn’t know anything about it,” Biden wrote in reference to Trump.
Biden has stressed that more money from his main investment plans has been spent in Republican-leaning states than in states that tend to vote Democratic. The president has admitted that reconstruction will require billions of dollars, and he has urged Congress to make funds available to contribute to it.
Trump, meanwhile, continues to attack the federal government for its response. “Kamala and Sleepy Joe are receiving universally poor marks for the way they are handling the hurricane, especially in North Carolina. “It is going down in history as the worst and most incompetently managed ‘storm’, at the federal level, ever seen,” he tweeted on his social network, Truth. The former president has described the federal reaction as “the worst response in the history of hurricanes.”
The Republican governors of the affected states, however, continue to praise the federal action. South Carolina’s Henry McMaster said Tuesday that federal help had “been wonderful” and that both Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had offered all the help the state needed. “I am incredibly grateful for the quick response and cooperation of the federal team,” said Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, also a Republican.
This same Thursday, coinciding with his visit to the State, the Governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, tweeted: “Today I spoke with the President and thanked him for visiting our State and for adding counties to the disaster declaration list. “I have also pushed for more counties to be added and for additional support as we work around the clock to recover from the devastating impacts of Helene.”
ERIK S. LESSER (EFE)
Meanwhile, rescue and assistance efforts continue. The confirmed death toll has skyrocketed to at least 215 in six states: the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Virginia. At least 72 of them have occurred in Asheville and Buncombe County, North Carolina, hit hard by flash floods, landslides, fallen trees, collapsed roads and other calamities.
