Kamala Harris pledged ongoing federal support and praised the “heroes among us” during a swing through hurricane-hit North Carolina on Saturday, her second trip in four days to the disaster zone.
The vice-president began her visit by attending a briefing with state and local officials in Charlotte, where she thanked “those who are in the room and those who are out there right now working around the clock” in the post-Helene rescue effort.
Harris 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”.
Her visit came one day after Donald Trump visited the same region and criticized the federal response to the devastated Appalachian region, where 200 people are confirmed dead from the storm.
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”.
Trump has also, in Helene’s aftermath, renewed his claims about climate change, calling it “one of the great scams of all time”. Climate scientists are overwhelmingly clear in their assessments that storms like Helene are intensifying and carrying more moisture, resulting in heavier rainfall, as the result of global warming.
After the briefing, Harris helped pack toiletries into aid kits at a distribution center, where she met with survivors from hard-hit Asheville.
“OK, you’re going to put me right to work,” she told volunteer emergency workers. Speaking with one woman from Asheville, she said: “We’re here for the long haul.”
A woman in a green T-shirt explained how the process worked and gestured to Melissa Funderbunk, one of the truck drivers.
“You all are the heroes among us,” Harris told Funderbunk.
North Carolina Democratic governor Roy Cooper said this week that more than 50,000 people have registered for Fema assistance and about $6m has been paid out.
On Saturday, 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.
The presidential candidates, and the president himself, have been at pains to show their concern for the victims of the disaster after previous disasters close to an election have proved politically pivotal.
But in this overheated election year, the aftermath of Helene is particularly tense. Norther Carolina borders South Carolina and Georgia, both states that are pivotal to the candidates as strategies to win the White House.
Earlier in the week, Harris was in Georgia, where she helped distribute meals, toured the damage and consoled families hard-hit by the storm. Joe Biden, too, visited the area, and visited Florida and Georgia, where he surveyed the damage and met with farmers whose crops had been destroyed.
In a letter 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”.