WASHINGTON – President Biden will be coming to Florida Sunday to visit the areas impacted by Hurricane Milton.
Biden also gave an update Friday on the federal government’s response to the recent catastrophic storms.
“When things are really bad, is there hope? Is there anybody coming?” Biden said during a briefing Friday.
Biden said the answer is yes, giving an update on the federal response to Hurricane Milton, with teams on the ground in Florida to help those impacted by the storm.
“Push comes to shove, they stand up and take care of one another,” Biden said.
Thousands of powerline workers from across the country are on the job to get the lights back on following back-to-back hurricanes. Milton caused an estimated $50 billion in damage, Biden said.
“Just alone, $50 billion. I want everyone in the impacted areas to know we are going to do everything we can to help pick back up the pieces and get back to where you were,” he added.
But in order to do that, the Federal Emergency Management Agency needs more money after spending a good portion of their disaster relief budget to help those impacted by recent storms.
“The disaster relief fund certainly does not have enough to continue recovery for everything that I have through the entire fiscal year, but I have enough money to support the immediate needs for everybody impacted by Helene and Milton,” said FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell.
They are now calling on House Speaker Mike Johnson to call lawmakers back to Washington and reconvene Congress to allocate more funding to FEMA.
“I think Speaker Johnson is going to get the message that we got to step up, particularly for small businesses,”Biden said.
Johnson hasn’t indicated that he plans to reconvene Congress.