President Joe Biden ordered “500 additional active-duty troops” to go to North Carolina to assist with the ongoing Hurricane Helene relief efforts.
The White House issued a press release on Sunday announcing that “in response” to a request for “additional support” from Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC), Biden had ordered additional active-duty troops to the state. This comes days after Biden ordered “up to 1,00 active-duty” troops to assist in “delivery of food, water and other critical aid” to people who have been affected by the hurricane.
In the press release, the White House noted there were now 1,500 troops assisting with hurricane relief efforts, along with more than 6,000 National Guard troops and “more than 7,000 Federal personnel.”
“Today, in response to North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper’s request for additional support, President Biden ordered that another 500 active-duty troops move into Western North Carolina,” the White House said in the press release. “With a total of 1,500 troops now supplementing robust on-the-ground effort — including more than 6,100 National Guardsmen and more than 7,000 Federal personnel — the Biden-Harris administration is mobilizing all relevant resources to support families as they begin their road to rebuilding.”
The White House added that the Biden-Harris administration had “already helped thousands of Hurricane Helene survivors jumpstart their recoveries with more than $137 million in Federal assistance,” adding that the administration had been in contact with “nearly 450 state, city, and county officials” in states that had been affected by the hurricane.
On Wednesday, Biden received an “aerial tour” of South Carolina and western North Carolina to observe the damage from the hurricane, while Vice President Kamala Harris visited Georgia, CBS News reported.
In the press release, the White House touted how Biden and Harris had “traveled throughout the Southeast” and had met with people in “impacted communities”:
President Biden and Vice President Harris have traveled throughout the Southeast this week to meet with impacted communities and, during their travels, have reaffirmed that the Administration will be with impacted communities every step of the way, no matter how long it takes, to ensure they have the support and resources they need to recover and rebuild. While there is a long way to go on the road to full recovery and rebuilding, Republican and Democratic leaders from across the country have praised the Administration’s well-coordinated response and surge of resources in the aftermath of Helene’s landfall — including South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, and Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer.
The additional troops to North Carolina come as residents in the state who have been affected by the hurricane have criticized the response from the federal government and have claimed that there has been a lack of a presence of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
One Asheville resident explained during an interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters that the Biden-Harris administration had taken “too long” to respond and added that it had taken “five days for Biden” to see the area.
“It’s too late,” Jordan Lanning said. “I mean, they took too long. They had — it took them five days to get here. I mean, it took five days for Biden to come here and he didn’t think we were worth coming down to see us himself, he had to fly over on his way to Raleigh. It’s disgraceful, they keep saying, ‘We the People.’ There is no ‘We the People,’ it’s them versus us. They’re not for us.”
In a press release from FEMA on October 4, the agency revealed that the Biden-Harris administration had sent more than $45 million to hurricane relief efforts. Out of this amount, more than $150,000 went to people in Georgia, over $4.5 million went to South Carolina, over $124,000 went to Virginia, more than $23 million went to Florida, and over $17 million went to people in North Carolina.
The agency added that they had received over “1,800 applications for disaster assistance” from people in Tennessee.