“This is not a one-off, this is not a photo-op issue”, Obama said.
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“I am asking every American to do what you can to help get families and local businesses back on their feet”, Obama said, directing people to the website volunteerlouisiana.gov and aid groups like the Red Cross.
“But what I need the folks of Louisiana to understand is you are not by yourself, even after the TV cameras leave”.
The president took a tour of what’s left of the flood zone Tuesday. Garret Graves and Cedric Richmond, Baton Rouge Mayor Kip Holden, Gonzalez Mayor Barney Arceneaux and FEMA administrator Craig Fugate.
President Barack Obama has toured the flood-ravaged areas of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he vowed to help residents rebuild in the coming months.
“I asked them to let us get out of the response mode where we were still conducting searches of houses and we were still making rescues”, he said.
Obama’s vacation ended Sunday, and the White House has maintained that he has been regularly briefed by senior staff on the situation on the ground and top administration officials also were sent to the Louisiana. The interim pastor at Greenwell Springs Baptist Church, Tony Perkins, is also the president of the Family Research Council (FRC), according to an LGBT-focused online publication, similarly titled The Advocate. We’re talking about a community being upended.
The numbers are simply staggering – 13 deaths; more than 60,000 homes damaged, with storm costs at $100 million and rising. At least 40 state highways remained closed.
It has been described as the worst natural disaster to hit the United States since Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Images of president George W. Bush looking out the window of Air Force One as he flew over New Orleans became emblematic of perceived government detachment from the crisis.
It’s likely to be a more dominant story, now that President Obama has visited there to view the aftermath. John Bel Edwards told Time Magazine this week.
Edwards also said during the interview he doesn’t have time to deal with the politics surrounding the president’s visit to the state while also trying to manage the response and recovery.
More than 115,000 people have registered for federal disaster aid, while some 20 million dollars has been distributed to individuals so far, the state government said.
Earnest said Obama waited to see the flood damage out of respect for law enforcement officials, not wanting to pull them off of their immediate emergency work in order to provide security for a presidential visit. You may remember he was the man killed in a police-involved shooting over in Baton Rouge.
Trump visited Baton Rouge on Friday, allowing him to cast the president as golfing while Louisianans suffered.
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Authorities will attempt to relieve a housing crunch in Louisiana caused by flooding with mobile homes, saying the homes are much better than the notorious FEMA trailers used after Hurricane Katrina.
