President Joe Biden will travel to Florida on Saturday to assess the impact of Hurricane Idalia and oversee recovery efforts. The president said he has had discussions with the governors of that state as well as those of Georgia and the Carolinas.
Hours after the hurricane passed Idalia in East and Central Florida In addition to Georgia and the Carolinas, US President Joe Biden announced on Thursday that he would visit Florida this weekend.
“I’m going to Florida on Saturday morning,” the president said in an afternoon speech from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) headquarters in Washington.
The president reported that he had online conversations with Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, as well as those of Georgia and South and North Carolina.
On Thursday, FEMA Director Deanna Criswell traveled to Florida to discuss the necessary details for participation with DeSantis and other agencies those affected by Idalia which was downgraded to a tropical storm that same night.
Later, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the $12 billion in funding requested by the executive branch was made on August 10 to make up for disaster irregularities.
In addition, they have requested more funding to support humanitarian assistance to Ukraine under the same project to combat the fentanyl crisis.
Also read: Florida tries to get back to normal after passing Idalia
During his visit to FEMA, Biden took the opportunity to congratulate officials, specialists and other staff for their work in dealing with emergencies in the country. The USA was most recently confronted with severe fires at the beginning of August that hit hawaiimainly the city of Maui.
“You work non-stop, I admire what you do,” he said.
The Democratic president returned, as he did yesterday from the White House, to the world-famous controversy surrounding environmental deniers.
“There are still people who refuse to accept that this has to do with climate change, and we’re going to need a lot more resources to deal with all of these things that you’re dealing with,” Biden told FEMA employees.
Biden concluded with a call for the U.S. Congress to speed up approval of funding needed to deal with the bad weather.
“We need this relief money for September and we can’t wait,” he concluded.