US President Biden warns that catastrophic storms will become more violent and frequent. He personally examines the devastating consequences of Hurricane “Ida” and speaks to those affected.
Washington / New York – US President Joe Biden has promised support to those who suffered from the devastating hurricane “Ida” during a visit to the disaster area in the southern United States.
“I know you are suffering,” said Biden on Friday in LaPlace, near New Orleans, Louisiana. “I want you to know: we will be there for you.” Political motives should not play a role in disaster relief and reconstruction. “It’s not about whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican. We are Americans and we will get through this together. “
At least 13 people were killed in the hurricane in Louisiana and the neighboring state of Mississippi. According to the White House, 800,000 households in the disaster region still had no electricity.
“Ida” hit the coast southwest of New Orleans on Sunday as a force four (out of five) hurricane and caused massive damage. Then the storm weakened overland and moved on to the northeast. There, heavy rains and catastrophic floods occurred in the metropolis of New York and in several states. At least 48 people died, the vast majority of them in New Jersey and the city of New York and its suburbs.
Clean-up work is also ongoing in the disaster region around New York
Biden sees the hurricane in the south, the floods in the northeast and the current forest fires in the western United States as further evidence that the climate crisis has begun. He warned that storms would become even more violent and frequent in the future. The infrastructure, which is ailing in many places in the USA, must be adapted to this development. Biden called on the Congress to pass appropriate laws and make funds available for infrastructure expansion. The democrat has made the fight against climate change one of his most important goals.
The clean-up work after the devastating storms in the northeast continued. In this disaster region, too, tens of thousands of people still had no electricity on Friday. During the storm on Wednesday evening, streets turned into raging rivers within a very short time, people were trapped in their cars by the deadly masses of water, hospitals, government buildings and homes were pumped out by the emergency services. In New York’s Central Park, 80 millimeters of rain fell within an hour – the all-time high for New York of 49 millimeters, which was only reached at the end of August, was literally pulverized.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that in future he would better take care of the protection of those New Yorkers who live in basement apartments. Several residents of such apartments drowned in their homes because of the uncontrollable masses of water – similar to the recent flood disaster in Germany. De Blasio did the same to Biden and made it clear that he expected these and similar weather events again and again in the future: “We have to start from the worst in a way that we have never done before: that storms will come faster, that they will be much more violent will be much more sudden and that they regularly set records. ”dpa