At least 166 people have died from Hurricane Helene, many are still missing and more than a million people remained without power as rescue and recovery efforts continued from the devastating storm.
Hundreds of people were missing in Buncombe county, home to Asheville, earlier this week, and 85 people were missing in Tennessee, CNN reported.
Joe Biden landed on Wednesday afternoon in Greer, South Carolina, where he was met by South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, Senator Lindsey Graham and the North Carolina governor, Roy Cooper, among others.Before leaving Washington, the US president directed up to 1,000 active-duty troops to immediately deploy to assist with recovery efforts.
Biden toured the impacted area from his Marine One helicopter, flying over flooded roads, down trees and rubble and emergency trucks and downed power lines. In one area, homes were partly under water, and it was hard to distinguish between lake and land.
In Washington, Biden had said a strike by dockworkers in the US could make getting supplies to hard-hit areas more difficult.
“Natural disasters are incredibly consequential. The last thing we need on top of that is a man-made disaster that’s going on at the ports,” Biden said. “We’re hearing from the folks regionally that they’re having trouble getting product that they need because of the port strike.”
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris arrived in Georgia on Wednesday and praised the workers straining to “meet the needs of people who must be seen, who must be heard”. She will visit North Carolina in the coming days. Donald Trump traveled to Georgia earlier in the week.
The vice-president was in the city of Augusta, where fallen trees littered the sides of the highway amid scenes of devastation.
“I’ve been reading and hearing about the work you’ve been doing over the last few days, and I think it really does represent some of the best of what we each know can be done,” Harris said. “Especially when we coordinate around local, state, federal resources to meet the needs of people who must be seen, who must be heard.”
She added: “I am now listening.”
Nearly 1.3 million people were without power in several south-eastern states as of 7.30am ET, according to the site poweroutage.us, which tracks outages. That total includes more than 373,000 people in Georgia, nearly 494,000 in South Carolina, and more than 347,000 in North Carolina. More than 40,000 people were still without power in Florida and Virginia, as well as an additional 10,000 people in West Virginia.
Several areas affected by the storm are also struggling to find drinking water. In Asheville, about 100,000 people were without running water, according to the Washington Post. Residents are boiling water and washing themselves and dishes in creeks, the Post reported. Fema delivered a cargo plane of food, water and emergency supplies on Tuesday, CNN reported.
Residents of Augusta have also not had running water for three days and several are under a boil water advisory.
Biden and some lawmakers from affected states, including Rick Scott, a Republican senator from Florida, suggested earlier this week he would call on Congress, which is on recess, to pass additional disaster relief funding. But that does not seem likely.
A stopgap funding measure Congress passed last month allows Fema to more quickly use $20bn in disaster relief funds. About $6bn of those funds, however, were expected to be used to address relief for previous disasters, including Vermont flooding and Hawaii wildfires, according to Roll Call.
“Congress has previously provided the funds it needs to respond, so we will make sure that those resources are appropriately allocated,” House speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said on Tuesday.
Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report
