Biden visits Florida to view Idalia damage despite Ron DeSantis boycott
President Biden visited storm-scarred Florida Saturday for a carefully curated tour of one of the state’s least hard-hit areas in the wake of Hurricane Idalia, where he vowed to help “for as long as it takes.”
“My mother used to have an expression: there but for the grace of God,” he said as he marveled at a huge tree torn down Wednesday by the storm’s ferocious winds, barely missing a young girl’s bedroom.
“Now that the storm is passed, we’re not going anywhere,” Biden said of the ongoing federal response. “We’re here to help the state as long as it takes.”
Biden’s three-hour drop-in to Live Oak, Fla., 40 miles inland, began with an aerial tour, then a motorcade to Suwanee Pineview Elementary School for a briefing from local officials and first responders – passing a resident waving a “Let’s Go Brandon” flag along the way.
He met with volunteers in the school library, which had been transformed into an aid distribution center, before delivering a short speech, then headed to Rehoboth Beach, Del. for the rest of the weekend.
The brief stop in the Sunshine State, just three days after the hurricane roared through, came in sharp contrast to Biden’s slow response to last month’s deadly wildfires in Maui.
But the president laughed off a question about when he might visit East Palestine, Ohio, where a toxic train derailment forced mass evacuations in February.
“There’s a lot going on and I just haven’t been able to break,” Biden said, his first comment on the Ohio disaster in more than six months.
“I was thinking that I’d go to East Palestine this week,” he added, mispronouncing its name. “But then I was reminded I’ve got to go literally around the world” for a trip to India and Vietnam.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — who cordially welcomed Biden to Florida following the Surfside condominium building collapse and other disasters, but has criticized him since announcing his own presidential bid – was notably absent from the scene.
DeSantis said Friday that a White House visit could be “very disruptive” to recovery efforts.
The governor spent Saturday in the devastated coastal communities of Horseshoe Beach and Keaton Beach, handing out Chik-fil-A meals from a bright red food truck and delivering trailers to residents whose homes had been swept away.
But on Saturday FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell said that DeSantis aides had assisted with the choice of Live Oak as Biden’s destination.
“The power is being restored, the roads are all open, and access has not been hindered. And that’s why this was mutually agreed upon” with the governor’s office — contradicting DeSantis’s claim to have warned Biden off the trip.
Jill Biden accompanied her husband, while Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) joined them on the ground.
A long line of vehicles queued up in Live Oak for food, water, and supplies distributed by the Florida National Guard, Fox Weather reported.
Farms surrounding the rural town took heavy damage, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, with barns and other agricultural buildings crumpling in place and flooded fields days after the storm passed through.
Idalia, the largest hurricane to hit Florida’s Big Bend area in more than a century, packed fierce 125 mph winds and a monster storm surge that wreaked havoc Wednesday morning, leaving at least 500,000 residents without power and blasting a trail of damage more than 100 miles wide.
Communities like Cedar Key, an island town about 90 miles southwest of Live Oak, bore the brunt of Idalia’s fury.
“Part of a whole hotel just broke apart and went into the Gulf,” Cedar Key Island resident Michael Bobbitt said Wednesday. “It’s like the Gulf is trying to swallow us up.”
In Perry, Fla., a town 30 miles west of Live Oak that relies on the lumber industry, local resident Jerry Wells said the pine forest had been “just devastated.”
“I don’t know how many people have trees in their homes,” Wells told the Tallahassee Democrat. “It’s turning into a tarp village.”
