Harris, Biden take in Helene’s destruction in separate visits to Carolinas, Georgia

By CHRIS MEGERIAN and COLLEEN LONG

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — President Joe Biden flew over toppled trees, twisted metal and towering piles of debris in the normally tourist friendly downtown of Asheville, North Carolina, on Wednesday, as he took a tour by helicopter of Hurricane Helene 's path of destruction. At the same time, Vice President Kamala Harris was getting her own look at the storm's damage in Georgia.

Many highways in the hardest-hit parts of North Carolina remained inaccessible, but from his Marine One helicopter, Biden saw flooded roads, piles of shredded lumber and displaced sandbags, emergency trucks and downed powerlines. In one area, homes were partly under water, and it was hard to distinguish between lake and land. Nearly 200 miles to the south, Harris was in Augusta, where she sat for a briefing and thanked assembled officials for helping “meet the needs of people who must be seen and must be heard.”

“I am now listening,” Harris said.

The role was familiar for Biden, who has frequently been called on to survey damage and console victims after tornadoes, wildfires, tropical storms and other natural disasters. But it's less so for Harris until now, as she vies to succeed him as president. Both are also seeking to demonstrate a larger commitment and competence in helping devastated communities after Donald Trump’s false claims about their administration’s response.

Before leaving for the helicopter tour, Biden wore a vest and boots and hugged and grabbed the hand of Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer who was at the airport in Greenville, South Carolina, to meet him. The White House announced during his flight that he’d also be visiting storm damaged parts of Florida and Georgia on Thursday.

Manheimer noted that they could not close down the area’s one operable road for Biden’s motorcade. The White House said Harris had also spoken to the mayor and was planning her own trip to North Carolina in coming days.

Before leaving Washington, Biden made a point of mentioning how an ongoing dockworkers strike 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,” the president said. “We’re getting pushback already, we’re hearing from the folks regionally that they’re having trouble getting product that they need because of the port strike.”

Harris' trip, meanwhile, presented an additional political test in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. She's trying to step into a role for which Biden is well known — showing the empathy that Americans expect in times of tragedy — in the closing stretch of her White House campaign.

The vice president last visited scenes of natural disasters as a California senator, including when she went to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017 and when she walked through charred wreckage in Paradise, California, after the Camp Fire in 2018.

Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Harris’ campaign manager and former state director in her Senate office, said the vice president uses her experience consoling victims as a courtroom prosecutor to connect with people after tragedies.

She said the trip to Georgia was a chance for Harris "to continue to show her leadership and her ability to get things done, versus Donald Trump and JD Vance who want to dismantle the basic services and the role that the government should play.”

Trump, the Republican nominee, traveled to Valdosta, Georgia, on Monday with a Christian charity organization that brought trucks of fuel, food, water and other supplies. The former president accused Biden of “sleeping” and not responding to calls from Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. However, Kemp had spoken with Biden the previous day, and the governor said the state was getting everything it needed.

Biden was infuriated by Trump’s claim, saying Trump was “lying, and the governor told him he was lying.”

The White House said that as many as 1,000 active-duty soldiers, part of an Infantry Battalion Task Force based out of Fort Liberty, North Carolina, will begin work helping to deliver food, fuel and supplies in the region.

“Even before Hurricane Helene hit, I directed my team to do everything possible to prepare to support communities in the storm’s path,” Biden said in a statement. “I mobilized the entire Federal government to bring every possible resource to the fight to save lives and help those in urgent need.”

The death toll climbed to at least 178 people, and power and cellular service remained unavailable in some places.

After viewing storm damage from the air with many roads and highways still impassable, Biden was heading to Raleigh, North Carolina, for a briefing.

Trump claimed without evidence that Democratic leaders were withholding help from Republican areas, an accusation that better describes his own approach to disaster relief. He recently threatened that he would withhold wildfire assistance from California because of disagreements with Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

When Trump was president, Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Maria, which killed 3,000 people. His administration waited until the fall of 2020, just weeks before the presidential election, to release $13 billion in assistance for Puerto Rico’s recovery. A federal government watchdog also found that Trump administration officials hampered an investigation into delays in the aid delivery.

During a visit there, he was criticized for tossing paper towel rolls to survivors at a relief center. The gesture seemed to go over well in the room but was widely panned as insensitive to those who were suffering. He also questioned whether the death toll was accurate, claiming it rose “like magic.”

Harris visited Puerto Rico after Maria as part of a bipartisan delegation.

“When disaster hits anywhere in America, our government has a basic responsibility to commit the resources necessary to save lives, accurately assess damage, and rebuild communities," she wrote on Twitter in 2018. "We now know that after Hurricane Maria, our government failed Puerto Rico at every level.”

Last month, on the seventh anniversary of Maria, Harris recalled speaking with Puerto Ricans who had lost businesses and homes.

“They didn’t need paper towels thrown at them — they needed real help and partnership,” she said.

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Associated Press writers Will Weissert and Nancy Benac contributed from Washington.