By COLLEEN LONG and AYANNA ALEXANDER Associated Press
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris pledged ongoing federal support and praised the “heroes among us” as she visited North Carolina on Saturday in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, her second trip in four days to the disaster zone.
The vice president was in Charlotte one day after a visit to the state by Republican Donald Trump, who is spreading false claims about the federal response to the disaster.
Harris opened her visit by attending a briefing with state and local officials, where she thanked “those who are in the room and those who are out there right now working around the clock.”
She promised federal assistance would continue to flow and added praise for the “strangers who are helping each other out, giving people shelter and food and friendship and fellowship.”
Despite Trump’s claims that the federal response in the state has been “lousy,” Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said the state was “deeply grateful for the federal resources that we have. FEMA has been on the ground with us since the very beginning,” he said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
After her briefing, Harris helped pack toiletries into aid kits at a distribution center, where she met Angelica Wind from hard-hit Asheville, who was there to volunteer with her daughter and a friend even though Wind said her own family was still without power and people were “just surviving.”
“There’s a lot of resilience,” Wind told Harris, adding that, “We want to make sure people don’t forget about us.”
Harris assured her the federal government was “here for the long haul.”
Melissa Funderbunk told Harris about driving a truck carrying assistance to people in remote Morganton, “where people weren’t coming.”
“You are the heroes among us,” Harris said.
Earlier in the week, Harris was in Georgia, where she helped distribute meals, toured the damage and consoled families hard-hit by the storm. President Joe Biden, too, visited the disaster zone. During stops over two days in the Carolinas, Florida and Georgia, Biden surveyed the damage and met with farmers whose crops have been destroyed.
The two have been vocal and visible about the government’s willingness to help, and the administration’s efforts so far include covering costs for all of the rescue and recovery efforts across the Southeast for several months as states struggle under the weight of the mass damage.
In a letter late Friday to congressional leaders, Biden wrote that while FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund “has the resources it requires right now to meet immediate needs, the fund does face a shortfall at the end of the year.” He also called on lawmakers to act quickly to restore funding to the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program.
More than 200 people have died. It’s the worst storm to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005, and scientists have warned such storms will only worsen in the face of climate change.
But in this overheated election year, even natural disasters have become deeply politicized as the candidates crisscross the disaster area and in some cases visit the same venues to win over voters in battleground states.
Trump has falsely claimed the Biden administration isn’t doing enough to help impacted people in Republican areas and has harshly criticized the response. He has, in Helene’s aftermath, espoused falsehoods about climate change, calling it “one of the great scams of all time.”
During a stop in Fayetteville, North Carolina on Thursday, Trump renewed his complaints about the federal response and cited “lousy treatment to North Carolina in particular.” In fact, Cooper said this week that more than 50,000 people have registered for FEMA assistance and about $6 million has been paid out.
Biden has suggested that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is withholding money for disaster relief needs.
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Long reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Makiya Seminera in Boone, North Carolina, and Meg Kinnard in Fayetteville, North Carolina, contributed to this report.