Helene, By the Numbers
Bubba
07 Oct
The devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene, as well as the government’s response, has become a flashpoint in America. (Axios)
Death toll: As of Saturday, 227 people across six states have died because of the hurricane, and the toll could rise even further as efforts to recover bodies progress.
Helene is the second-deadliest U.S. hurricane this century behind Katrina, which led to nearly 1,400 deaths.
Budget: The Biden administration has provided $20 million in recovery funding to Helen survivors.
The administration also sent $100 million in emergency relief to North Carolina to defray the costs of damaged roads and bridges.
After Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last week that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had run out of money, Republicans slammed FEMA’s $640 million shelter program for noncitizen migrants.
A week before Helene hit, Congress approved $20 billion for FEMA’s disaster relief fund as part of a stopgap bill to keep the government running through December, but did not approve several billions dollars of requested supplemental funds.
House Speaker Mike Johnson said he won’t be calling members of Congress out of recess to vote on emergency funding for Helene relief.
The response: Six days after Helene made landfall, President Biden dispatched 1,000 active-duty soldiers to North Carolina to assist in relief efforts.
Biden sent another 500 troops to North Carolina on Sunday.
During Katrina, President George W. Bush’s turnaround time on ordering 7,000 active-duty troops to Gulf Coast was five days.
The media: Robert Sterling, an entrepreneur and conservative commentator, has noted that, compared to reporting on Helene, mainstream coverage of Katrina was more extensive and critical of the sitting president.
Bubba’s Two Cents
This close to an election year, it’s probably inevitable that this disaster was going to get immediately politicized. The comparisons to Katrina are understandable, but there are also some critical differences that should be taken into account when assessing Biden’s response (which I’m neither trying to defend nor condemn). Unsurprisingly, Republicans are trashing Biden’s response, while Democrats are doing the opposite (CNN has hilariously published a “fact-check” claiming the verdict on Helene has been “bipartisan praise” for the president). Maybe Biden could take a page from Bush, who, to his great credit, ordered a report on the government’s failures during Katrina.