After flying over stalled cars and buses and landing to find damaged homes and a collapsed school, Mr Biden told local officials his government would cover the cost of the emergency response to the torrential rain and flooding that left dead at least 37 people. “Everybody has an obligation to help,” said Mr. Biden, who stood in front of a condemned house. He added that he wanted to ensure the region was rebuilt in a way that would make communities more resilient to the deadly storms, floods and natural disasters he described as a consequence of climate change. Mr. Biden also said the legislation the Senate passed Sunday, which includes the largest spending ever by the federal government to slow global warming and reduce demand for fossil fuels, would help his residents Kentucky to rebuild. His comments were likely the start of a new campaign to rally Democratic voters around his legislative victory ahead of the midterm elections. But it will take time for such investments to have an impact on disaster-prone communities. Even with federal funds available, many poor and rural areas lack sufficient capacity to rebuild effectively. Businesses often lack flood protection systems and many homes remain on lowlands prone to rising waters. Few of the flood-damaged homes in Kentucky’s hardest-hit areas had flood insurance, according to federal data. Land in Kentucky built to serve miners working under hills and mountains is especially vulnerable to flooding after many mines closed, leaving homes unprotected from rising waters in nearby rivers. Mr. Biden said Monday that the state would find help in his bipartisan infrastructure package, which was tripled to $700 million a year, a program aimed at reducing flood damage by buying or elevating homes at risk of flooding. “It’s really going to take an across-the-board approach to rebuilding this way, and it flies in the face of human nature,” said Chad Berginnis, the executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. “I guess after all this suffering, I’d just like to go back to normal. That’s the human side of it, but it’s so important to pause and carefully rebuild so the next flood doesn’t happen.” That human cost was evident on Monday. Mr Biden said it was “incredibly heartbreaking” to see stranded vehicles washing up in creeks and in large piles of debris. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the death toll was likely to rise to 38 people.
How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members can vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or providing money or fundraising for any political candidate or election cause.
Mr. Beshear also made it clear that the federal system created to help those recovering from disasters could be improved, noting that “too many” Kentuckians had been denied help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency because of technical errors in the submission process. applications. “Very little is paid to those who go through the system,” Mr. Beshear said. “The people of Eastern Kentucky have lost everything. Most just have the clothes on their backs. No insurance, no other coverage. Now is the time to fix this problem.” FEMA had opened 15 shelters across the state as of Monday and delivered 56 truckloads of water, although some drainage systems were not yet fully operational, according to a FEMA daily briefing document. The agency has deployed hundreds of emergency workers to the state and sent more than $3.6 million in the wake of the deadly storms, according to the White House. Federal grants remain the best hope for local officials aiming to adapt to climate change but overseeing communities with limited tax bases like eastern Kentucky, according to Roy Wright, who ran FEMA’s hazard mitigation programs until in 2018. The Biden administration has invested billions of dollars in these programs, including adding new money to a FEMA grant program called Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, to try to mitigate the effects of climate change. But the grants are heavily oversubscribed – and communities’ only shot at the money comes if state governments apply on their behalf. “They have to lean more on their state to take advantage of the dollars that Congress and this administration have set aside specifically for this purpose,” said Mr. Wright, who is now president of the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, a research group. . On this front, the people affected by the recent floods have recently escaped. In the most recent round of funding, Kentucky applied for BRIC grants for just two projects, far fewer than most states. And neither project focused on the eastern part of the state. In the end it didn’t matter. FEMA denied both applications.
