United States President Joe Biden has promised to provide continued support to Florida communities affected by Hurricanes Milton and Helene as he surveyed storm-related destruction in the southeastern US state.
During a news conference on Sunday, Biden said people had “lost family members [and] lost all their personal belongings” after the storms pummelled Florida over the past few weeks.
“Entire neighbourhoods were flooded and millions – millions – were without power,” he told reporters in St Pete Beach, a resort city on a barrier island just west of St Petersburg, on Florida’s west coast.
“Homeowners have taken a real beating in back-to-back storms and they’re heartbroken and exhausted, and their expenses are piling up,” Biden said.
While Hurricane Milton was not as catastrophic as initially predicted, the storm lashed Florida with torrential rain and dangerous winds last week, killing at least 18 people and destroying more than 100 buildings.
Milton hit just two weeks after Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in Florida in late September and carved a path inland as it brought dangerous flash flooding and winds to several US states, including hard-hit North Carolina.
During Biden’s tour of Florida on Sunday, street corners were filled with debris alongside felled palm trees and homes with busted pastel-painted garage doors as the smell of mouldy building materials filled the air.
Heaps of mattresses, siding, couches, microwave ovens, pillows and busted-up kitchen cabinets lined the roads, some still covered in large patches of sand, as the US president walked through with emergency responders. One photo album still lay scattered in the street.
“I know you’re concerned about the debris removal and it’s obvious why,” he said during the news conference in St Pete Beach. “There’s much more to do. We’re doing everything we can.”
Flooding is expected to continue around Tampa Bay as well as in the Sanford area northeast of Orlando as river waters continue to rise, according to the National Weather Service.
About 75 percent of Florida’s power is back online, with full restoration expected by Tuesday evening, said Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, who travelled with Biden.
More gasoline distribution sites are also scheduled to open on Sunday, according to the state’s emergency operations centre.
But five days after the storm hit, about 927,000 customers still do not have power, according to the online tracker PowerOutage.us.
“It’s still a mess,” Liz Alpert, the mayor of Sarasota, a city south of Tampa, told ABC News’s This Week programme.
Alpert added, however, that “it’s been heartening to see all of the outpouring of support and help that people have been offering”.
On Sunday, Biden announced $612m in funding for six Department of Energy projects in hurricane-affected areas to bolster the region’s electric grid.
The Democratic president also reiterated his call for US lawmakers – on recess until after the November 5 presidential election – to return to Washington, DC to approve more federal support for post-hurricane relief.
St Pete Beach Mayor Adrian Petrila, speaking alongside Biden, echoed the call for help.
“We’re concerned about the future of our town,” Petrila said.
“We need continued federal resources and we need a path forward to ensure that our community and all other communities, all other cities who were devastated just like this town, can emerge stronger than ever before.”
The Biden administration’s response to the hurricanes has become a political issue just weeks before the election, which is set to pit Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris against her Republican rival, former President Donald Trump.
Trump has accused Biden and Harris of not doing enough to respond to the storms.
“A lot of governors have done a good job but the response from the White House has been absolutely terrible. [Harris’s] response has been absolutely terrible,” the ex-president said in an interview with FOX News, which aired on Sunday.
The Biden-Harris administration has hit back at Trump for promoting falsehoods about the federal response.
Speaking at a predominantly Black church in North Carolina on Sunday, Harris criticised people she said were “not acting in the spirit of community”.
“I am speaking of those who have been literally not telling the truth, lying about people who are working hard to help the folks in need, spreading disinformation when the truth and facts are required,” she said, without mentioning Trump by name.
“The problem with this, beyond the obvious, is it’s making it harder, then, to get people life-saving information if they’re led to believe they cannot trust,” Harris said.
“And that’s the pain of it all, which is the idea that those who are in need have somehow been convinced that the forces are working against them in a way that they would not seek aid.”