The president has taken pains to show his commitment to the storm response even as his administration deals with the Afghanistan pullout and other critical issues.<\/b>
\nPresident Biden flew to the New Orleans area on Friday to tour the damage wrought by Hurricane Ida, part of an effort to demonstrate his commitment to the federal government\u2019s storm response even as his administration remains enmeshed in other pressing matters from the coronavirus surge to the aftermath of his Afghanistan withdrawal. Mr. Biden landed in Louisiana shortly before 1 p.m. local time, shook hands with a bipartisan group of elected officials from the state and boarded a helicopter for a multistop tour of the storm\u2019s damage. He landed northwest of the city, in Reserve, La., along the banks of the Mississippi, and then traveled by motorcade to St. John the Baptist Parish Emergency Operations Center in LaPlace, where he received a briefing from officials on the ground. Along the drive, Mr. Biden passed miles of downed power lines and crews of workers repairing them. In the meeting, according to a pool reporter, Mr. Biden acknowledged the difficulties in reconnecting power to consumers across the region, while praising the crews working on the ground. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be frustrated about the restoration of power,\u201d he said, \u201cand I understand.\u201d Ida slammed into Louisiana on Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane, leaving at least 13 people there dead and the power grid in shambles, before its remnants marched up the East Coast and deluged New York and much of the rest of the Northeast, killing dozens more. Despite the departure of the last U.S. troops from Afghanistan on Monday, Mr. Biden has taken pains to show his engagement with the storm response efforts throughout the week. On Sunday, as the storm made landfall on the Gulf Coast, he stopped at the Federal Emergency Management Agency\u2019s headquarters in Washington to give workers a pep talk. On Friday, Mr. Biden wore rolled-up shirt sleeves and boots as he attended the emergency operations briefing, which included Gov. John Bel Edwards of Louisiana, Representative Garret Graves, Republican of Louisiana, Representative Troy Carter, Democrat of Louisiana, and Deanne Criswell, the FEMA administrator. He later donned a blue baseball cap while touring damaged homes in LaPlace, hugging some people as they showed him debris from the storm. \u201cFolks, I know you\u2019re hurting,\u201d Mr. Biden said in brief remarks for news cameras in LaPlace. \u201cI know you\u2019re hurting. I know the folks in Lake Charles who I visited earlier this year are still hurting from Hurricane Laura. I want you to know we\u2019re going to be here for you.\u201d The itinerary for the trip, and Mr. Biden\u2019s aggressive public efforts to highlight how his administration was preparing for the storm, provided a stark contrast from President George W. Bush\u2019s reaction to Hurricane Katrina 16 years ago. Mr. Bush drew sharp criticism for a slow federal response to that storm, which inundated parts of New Orleans and caused the deaths of more than 1,800 people. Mr. Bush was famously photographed viewing the storm\u2019s devastation from a window on Air Force One, in what became a symbol of federal detachment from the damage. He later said he regretted the photograph, and wished he had landed in Louisiana. \u201cI should have touched down in Baton Rouge, met with the governor and, you know, walked out and said, \u2018I hear you,\u2019\u201d Mr. Bush said in a 2010 interview. \u201cAnd then got back on a flight up to Washington. I did not do that. And paid a price for it.\u201d Mr. Biden has not mentioned Mr. Bush in his remarks about the hurricane this week. But he has repeatedly promoted government efforts to position electrical workers, medical teams, electrical generators and other aid ahead of the storm, in hopes of rapidly bringing relief to the people affected by it. On Friday, Mr. Biden cast the efforts as a unifying, bipartisan response to a disaster. \u201cI think what we\u2019re all seeing \u2014 I\u2019m getting the same response from my Republican friends here that are in the Congress \u2014 is that there\u2019s nothing political about this,\u201d he said at the operations center. \u201cIt\u2019s just simply about saving lives and getting people back up and running.\u201d Mr. Biden has also used the storm, including the flooding in the Northeast on Wednesday, to call attention to his agenda to fight climate change. Democrats in Congress are scrambling this month to try to pass a multitrillion-dollar spending bill that Mr. Biden says should include tax incentives for low-carbon energy deployment, along with other policies meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Thursday that the hurricane reaffirmed the president\u2019s \u201ccommitment to getting his Build Back Better agenda passed, which has a huge, huge focus on addressing the climate crisis.\u201d Mr. Biden continued the pitch on Friday, promoting both the large spending bill and a bipartisan bill to invest in roads, bridges and other physical infrastructure, which Mr. Biden said was needed to be rebuilt in a better way to withstand climate change. \u201cHurricane Ida\u2019s another reminder that we need to be prepared for the next hurricane,\u201d he said in LaPlace. \u201cAnd superstorms are going to come, and they\u2019re going to come more frequently and more ferociously. I\u2019ve been working closely with the governor and our colleagues in Congress in both parties on my Build Back Better plan that will modernize our roads, our bridges, sewers and drainage systems and power grids and transmission lines to make sure they\u2019re more resilient.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re Americans,\u201d Mr. Biden added near the end of his remarks, \u201cand we\u2019ll get through this together.\u201d<\/p>\n