Photo: Win McNamee / Getty Images
President Joe Biden will travel to Louisiana, where you will inspect the damage caused by Hurricane Ida and will meet with state and local leaders.
The White House announced the trip on Wednesday, just days after Hurricane Louisiana hit Sunday, leaving residents affected by the major floods and the disaster left in its wake by that state. Hundreds of thousands of people still face power and water outages.
Hurricane Ida was the fifth most powerful storm in US history, hitting Louisiana with winds of 150 mph and higher gusts and causing the death of at least six people .
The hurricane caused $ 50, 000 million dollars or more, according to The Associated Press.
Biden declared Louisiana a “major disaster” area last Sunday due to the impact of the hurricane, which made landfall in that state and destroyed much of the electrical wiring , especially in the New Orleans metropolitan area, leaving more of a million million customers in the dark.
His neighbor, the state Mississippi, also suffered the lash of the hurricane, which already leaves four dead in those states and a trail of material damage not yet quantified in the middle of the floods.
Biden also approved the declaration of “major disaster” for Mississippi, which allows the rapid mobilization of resources from the federal government to support the tasks of the entities state and local.
At her daily press conference, the White House spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, assured that the president’s trip has been planned “in close coordination with the leaders on the ground”, to ensure that it occurs “at the right time ”And without interfering with relief and restoration efforts in the area.
Psaki noted that Biden has been in contact with the leaders of two of the main energy supplying companies of the Gulf, Entergy, Southe rn Company, as well as the Edison Electric Institute, which groups together all electric companies owned by U.S. shareholders.
The spokeswoman said that the president is working “with all levels of the federal government” to accelerate the restoration of electricity service, a task that can take some time.
With information from EFE