Biden, Harris to tour Helene damage in North and South Carolina, Georgia
By Stephanie Kelly
Oct 2 (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will travel on Wednesday to North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia to assess the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene in the southeastern U.S. which has killed at least 140 people.
While Biden visits North and South Carolina, Harris will travel Wednesday to Georgia and to North Carolina in the coming days. The trips come as former president Donald Trump, who is running against Harris in this year's presidential election, falsely claimed that Biden, a Democrat, has been unresponsive to the hurricane's destruction.
Biden will participate in an aerial tour of Greenville, South Carolina, before receiving an operational briefing in Raleigh, North Carolina, as rescuers scour the state's mountains for survivors. He will travel to Georgia and Florida soon, he previously said.
North Carolina and Georgia are among seven key battleground states in this year's election, which is expected to be won by thin margins. Harris currently leads Trump by 2.6 percentage points in national polls, according to aggregator FiveThirtyEight.
North Carolina election officials are scrambling to make sure the state's over 7 million registered voters can cast a ballot in the upcoming presidential election.
Trump visited Georgia earlier this week. Presidents and presidential candidates usually do not visit a storm-hit region immediately because of fears they will distract from rescue efforts and drain resources from local law enforcement officials and emergency responders.
Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida on Thursday as a powerful Category 4 hurricane before tearing a destructive path through southeastern states for several days.
Biden quickly made major disaster declarations in several states, which allows survivors to apply for federal assistance. The White House also has called hundreds of officials across North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida.
Biden may ask Congress to return to Washington for a special session to pass supplemental aid funding, he said earlier this week, while more than 3,500 federal workers are involved with response efforts in affected states, according to the White House.
The process of rebuilding after Hurricane Helene will be extremely costly and take years, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Tuesday.
Reporting by Stephanie Kelly; Editing by Heather Timmons & Shri Navaratnam
免责声明: XM Group仅提供在线交易平台的执行服务和访问权限，并允许个人查看和/或使用网站或网站所提供的内容，但无意进行任何更改或扩展，也不会更改或扩展其服务和访问权限。所有访问和使用权限，将受下列条款与条例约束：(i) 条款与条例；(ii) 风险提示；以及(iii) 完整免责声明。请注意，网站所提供的所有讯息，仅限一般资讯用途。此外，XM所有在线交易平台的内容并不构成，也不能被用于任何未经授权的金融市场交易邀约和/或邀请。金融市场交易对于您的投资资本含有重大风险。
所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。
本网站上由XM和第三方供应商所提供的所有内容，包括意见、新闻、研究、分析、价格、其他资讯和第三方网站链接，皆保持不变，并作为一般市场评论所提供，而非投资性建议。所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为适用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。请确保您已阅读并完全理解，XM非独立投资研究提示和风险提示相关资讯，更多详情请点击 这里。
