‘We’re going to have your back’
Biden visits areas hit hard by Ida, assesses damage
NEW ORLEANS — Less than a week after Hurricane Ida ravaged the Gulf Coast, President Joe Biden was in Louisiana on Friday to get an up-close view of the damage and offer assistance from the federal government.
The devastation was clear as Air Force One approached New Orleans, with uprooted trees and blue tarps covering shredded houses coming into focus ahead of landing. The path to nearby LaPlace, where Biden was to be briefed by local officials, was dotted with wood poles that held power lines jutting from the ground at odd angles.
“I promise we’re going to have your back,” Biden said at the outset of the briefing.
Such trips to natural disaster scenes have long been a feature of the U.S. presidency. It’s a moment to demonstrate compassion and show the public that the president is leading during the crisis. It’s also an opportunity to hit pause, however temporarily, from the political sniping that often dominates Washington.
In shirtsleeves and boots, Biden was welcomed at the airport by Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat. Several Republicans, including Sen. Bill Cassidy and Rep. Steve Scalise, the House Republican whip, also were on hand.
Biden was meeting with local officials and touring a neighborhood in LaPlace, a community between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain that suffered catastrophic wind and water damage and was left with sheared-off roofs and flooded homes. He also planned a flyover tour of hard-hit communities including Lafitte, Grand Isle, Port Fourchon and Lafourche Parish, where Parish President Archie Chaisson said 25% of the homes in his community of 100,000 people were gone or had catastrophic damage.
Past presidents have been defined in part by how they handled such crises.
President Donald Trump casually lobbed paper towels to people in Puerto Rico after a hurricane, generating scorn from critics but little damage to his political standing. President Barack Obama hugged New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie in 2012 after Superstorm Sandy, a brief respite from partisan tensions that had threatened the economy with a fiscal cliff. And George W. Bush fell out of public favor after a poor and unprepared response to Hurricane Katrina, which swamped New Orleans in 2005.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, Biden is grappling with the persistent threat posed by climate change and the prospect that disaster zone visits may become a more regular feature of the presidency. Beyond the damage on the Gulf Coast, remnants from the storm killed at least 49 people from Maryland to Connecticut. There were at least 13 deaths in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
The president has pointed to that destruction to call for greater public resolve to confront climate change and help the nation deal with the fierce storms, flooding and wildfires that have beset the country.
Scientists say climate change increases the frequency of extreme weather events — such as large tropical storms, and the droughts and heat waves that create conditions for vast wildfires. U.S. weather officials recently reported that July 2021 was the hottest month ever recorded in 142 years of record-keeping.
At Friday’s briefing with local officials, Biden insisted the infrastructure bill and an even more expansive measure would more effectively prepare the country for new challenges.
“It seems to me we can save a whole lot of money, a whole lot of pain for our constituents, if we build back, rebuild it back in a better way,” Biden said. “I realize I’m selling as I’m talking.”
Meanwhile, utility officials said Friday that power should be restored to New Orleans by the middle of next week, and sheriff ’s deputies warned people returning to communities outside the city to come equipped like survivalists because of the lack of basic services in Ida’s aftermath.
The storm knocked out electricity to more than 1 million customers in Louisiana, but almost all lights in the city should be back on by Wednesday, according to Entergy, the company that provides power to New Orleans and much of southeast Louisiana in the storm’s path.
The utility company issued a statement asking for patience and acknowledging the heat and misery in the storm’s wake. More than 25,000 workers from 40 states are trying to fix 14,000 damaged poles, more than 2,200 broken transformers and more than 150 destroyed transmission structures.
“Please know that thousands of employees and contractors are currently in the field working day and night to restore power. We will continue working until every community is restored,” said Rod West, a group president for utility operations.
The outlook was bleaker south and west of the city, where Ida’s fury fully struck. The sheriff ’s office in Lafourche Parish cautioned returning residents about the difficult situation that awaited them no power, no running water, little cellphone service and almost no gasoline.
The utility offered no promises for when the lights will come back on in the parishes outside New Orleans, some of which were battered for hours by winds of 100 mph or more.