Biden, Harris take stock of battered southeastern US after Hurricane Helene
Al Jazeera
The US president and vice president will visit the Carolinas and Georgia, where more than one million people are without power.
US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will head to South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia in the wake of a devastating storm that tore through the region last week, killing at least 155.
Hurricane Helene, a thunderous Category 4 storm, unleashed some of the worst flooding in generations after it made landfall on September 26, sweeping away homes and cars and claiming victims across the Carolinas and Georgia, in addition to Florida, Tennessee and Virgina.
As Biden and Harris get ready to see the damage close up on Wednesday, hundreds are still missing and more than a million are without power.
“It was close to a worst-case scenario for western North Carolina”, with some of the most severe flooding ever seen, according to an assessment shared by the North Carolina State Climate Office.
Recovery, according to US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, will be a years-long “multibillion-dollar undertaking”.
