By Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden said he plans to travel to storm-ravaged North Carolina on Wednesday to view the toll from Hurricane Helene.
Western North Carolina residents faced a “post-apocalyptic” landscape on Monday in the wake of Helene, with hundreds of people still missing and residents struggling amid flooded roads and a lack of basic services.
Biden told reporters he planned to go to North Carolina after a briefing with the state’s governor, Roy Cooper, and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell.
Biden will participate in a local briefing and an aerial tour of Asheville, he later said on social media platform “X.” He said he also plans to travel to Georgia and Florida as soon as possible.
Biden accused Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump of “lying” on Monday for saying that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, had trouble reaching the White House in the aftermath of the storm.
“That’s simply not true, and it’s irresponsible,” Biden told reporters.
Kemp and Biden confirmed that the two spoke on Sunday.
A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Officials reported more than 100 deaths across a half-dozen states due to Helene, which was a major hurricane when it slammed into Florida’s Big Bend region late on Thursday before cutting a destructive path through Georgia and into the Carolinas.
Officials said the death toll was likely to rise even as they clung to hope that emergency responders would find most of those unaccounted for as they reached more locations and as emergency mobile telecommunications services came online.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Chris Reese and Leslie Adler)
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