The Presidency, Not a Silver Platter Gift...
Gale force winds of political discontent building in Helene's wake...
The plodding federal response in the wake of Hurricane Helene—President Joe Biden hitting the beach in Rehoboth, working the phones for just two hours; Vice President Kamala Harris keeping her Hollywood glitz engagement—is just as epic as Helene, the death toll rising to 160 souls with hundreds more missing, many presumed dead in this, the deadliest hurricane since Katrina killed over 1,800 souls in 2005.
Biden and Harris are the very picture of Nero fiddling while Rome is burning, even as the Middle East is on tenterhooks, Iran lobbing some 200 missiles into Israel today—twice as many as April 13’s attack—in retaliation for the killing of Hezbollah secretary-general Hassam Nasrallah who rained terror on Israel over three decades.
Hurricane Helene made landfall near Perry, Florida, just east of the Ancilla River’s mouth at 11:10 p.m. EDT on Thursday, September 26. With winds gusting at 140 mph and storm surge levels reaching 15 feet in Taylor and Dixie Counties, this massive Category 4 hurricane ranks among the most powerful ever to strike the United States, and was the fiercest on record to hit landfall in Florida’s Big Bend.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Biden and Harris were no shows.
No reassuring press conference letting residents know help was on the way, commiserating with their pain and suffering, offering solace and urging Americans to do what they can to help their beleaguered brothers and sisters.
They did not want to get in the way of the cleanup, they said, which is the lamest of excuses.
The truth is, of course, that it would have interfered with Biden’s sunbathing—Saturday, a gorgeous day on the beach; and with Harris basking in the Hollywood celebrity glow, even as she raked in millions.
By contrast, President Donald J. Trump showed up in Valdosta, Georgia yesterday, early afternoon, to offer his support, moral and material— “many trailers” full, including gas and food—joined by Samaritan’s Purse head, Rev. Franklin Graham, whose organization is in the shadow of obliterated rural North Carolina. Trump also started a GoFundMe page to help victims of Hurricane Helene, which has already raised $3.5 million, and counting.
That’s how presidents—Republican or Democrat—should behave.
Right now, our country is helmed by a duo who act like four more years of the presidency will be handed to them on a silver platter.
It will not.
Not if voters impacted by Helene in six states, especially in hardest hit North Carolina and Georgia, have anything to say about it. Not surprisingly, polls out of these two states show a decided uptick in support for Pres. Trump, suggesting a not-unrelated electoral surge.
Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia called the damage “unprecedented.” Gov. Bill Lee of North Carolina had the same reaction.
As the days have passed, and impassable roads have not been cleared and/or precious resources airlifted in to maintain life, or people airlifted out to safety, they have died. And, they will continue to perish for want of food, water and medicine.
And, the outrage will rise to Hurricane Katrina levels.
One young woman from North Carolina summed it up, noting, over four days while her loved ones were stranded, the lack of a formal press conference by Biden or Harris and zero FEMA presence, even as they had minimal amounts of food and water and inability to “cut their way out” and “get the trees out of the roads”—presuming the roads are there. “No one knows anything,” she said of loved ones’ fates.
As of Sunday, September 29, the President declared Florida and North Carolina major disaster areas, Monday, Sept. 30, South Carolina—and Georgia today in advance of Harris’ trip to Augusta on Wednesday, October 2.
FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell is now camping out in North Carolina at the direction of the Pres. Biden—perhaps, one of the phone calls he made from sunny Rehoboth Beach. Biden, tanned and rested, will visit tomorrow. Ten search and rescue teams have been combing the devastated Tar Heel State, nine more joining the effort today, as residents grow increasingly anxious for their loved ones. And, today, the operating base in Asheville received a C-17 cargo plane full of food, water and emergency supplies, trucks unable to deliver goods via washed out highways. And, 25 trailer-loads of meals and 60 trailers-loads of water arrived.
Hopefully many will be saved. And, the point is not to pile on, but to note the obvious, which must change.
Mary Claire Kendall is author of Oasis: Conversion Stories of Hollywood Legends. The sequel, Oasis of Faith: The Souls Behind the Billboard—Barrymore, Cagney, Tracy, Stewart, Guinness & Lemmon, was just published. Her biography of Ernest Hemingway, titled Hemingway’s Faith, is being published Christmas 2024 by Rowman & Littlefield, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. She writes a regular bi-monthly column for Aleteia on legends of Hollywood and hidden screen gems.