President Biden strikes back
When Hurricane Helene hit last week, we saw Donald Trump lie about FEMA’s response while the rest of his party pushed back – even going so far as to praise President Biden for his response in coordinating federal with state and local recovery efforts. It’s a fairly stark contrast to what life was like under the former guy, who refused to help Democratic governors of blue states (most notably during COVID) – even going so far as to incite violence against them.
The reality is that rather than doing nothing, President Biden approved federal aid just as the storm hit. With Milton, he unveiled FEMA’s emergency response in detail on a White House fact sheet – with six FEMA Incident Management Assistance Teams, five FEMA Urban Search & Rescue teams, three teams for Swift Water Rescue missions by the US Coast Guard, four HealthCare System Assessment Teams, as well as two U.S Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) temporary power teams, and multiple USACE debris experts, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and wastewater experts, along with 300 ambulances and 30 High Water Vehicles with ladders from the Defense Department and prepared meals and drinking water at two staging bases.
This comes just as Ron DeSantis shows signs of playing politics with the storm once again, a clear reminder that any sort of disaster relief plan – even in a state like Florida that is heavily prone to floods and hurricanes, is anathema to the GOP’s line of thought. This is why we need to elect Democrats that will take care of all their constituents in the event of a hurricane or natural disaster – and elect Kamala Harris on Nov 5.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making