Biden tours Florida’s storm-hit streets as Milton debris piles up

ST PETE BEACH, Florida: US President Joe Biden on Sunday surveyed the damage from Florida’s Hurricane Milton, the second storm to batter the low-lying state in recent weeks as rising floodwaters, fuel shortages and power outages further impacted cleanup efforts.

Milton, which led to at least 17 reported deaths, has added to piles of debris following Hurricane Helene, with electricity and fuel still unavailable in many areas.

Biden’s Marine One helicopter thundered along Florida’s western coast from Tampa to St. Petersburg over a landscape of golf courses, waterfront skyscrapers. The aerial tour showed communities battered by the storm and offered a firsthand view of the shredded roof of Tampa Bay Rays’ baseball stadium, Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg.

On the ground, Biden passed entire neighborhoods in St. Pete Beach with debris piled on street corners next to felled palm trees and homes with their pastel-painted garage doors busted as the smell of moldy building materials filled the air.

Heaps of mattresses, siding, couches, microwave ovens, pillows and busted-up kitchen cabinets all lined the island’s roads, some still covered in large patches of sand, as Biden walked through with emergency responders. One photo album still lay scattered in the street.

“Help,” one resident asked Biden in lettering on one pile of household debris.

Biden, touring the area along with US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, will also meet with residents before making public remarks.