Joe Biden.Photo: MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty
PresidentJoe Bidenpaid a visit to the Gulf Coast Friday, less than a week after Hurricane Ida made landfall as a category 4 storm in Louisiana Sunday.
Hurricane Ida hit just before 1 p.m. local time on Sunday, Aug. 29 — on the 16th anniversary of the devastatingHurricane Katrina.
As of Thursday morning,at least 22 people were killed in the storm from Maryland to New York, while Ida has been linked to at least five deaths in Mississippi and Louisiana, perCNN.
Joe Biden.MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty
Biden spoke in a meeting with local leaders before surveying the storm’s damage in an aerial tour of the hardest-hit communities.
Thanking the 25,000 linemen from 32 states working to restore power to the area, Biden noted the frustration and said the administration was “working 24/7 with [power] management companies.”
“There’s nothing political about this,” he said. “It’s just simply about saving lives and getting people back up and running. We’re in this together, and so we’re not going to leave any community behind. Rural, city, coastal, inland. I promise we’re going to have your backs ‘til this gets done.”
The president also took the opportunity to tout his Build Back Better infrastructure plan, which he said would help rebuild structures to be better equipped to withstand damaging weather.
“Things have changed so drastically in terms of the environment, we’ve already crossed certain thresholds, we can’t build back roads, highways, bridges, anything to what it was before, we gotta build back to what it is now what’s needed now,” Biden said.
“And I know the heads of energy companies understand this really well, we have a significant piece of legislation, both the infrastructure bill and … a reconciliation bill that call for significant investment in being able to deal with what is about to come.”
source: people.com
