President Joe Biden anounced $612m funding for investments in the electric grid, including $94m for storm-battered Florida, during a visit Sunday to the Sunshine State to survey the damage from Hurricane Milton.
“Moments like this we come together to take care of each other – not as Democrats or Republicans but as Americans,” Biden said during remarks in St. Pete Beach.
“Americans who need help, Americans who would help you if you were in a similar situation. We are one United States. One United States.”
The Florida investments include $47m to Gainesville Regional Utilities and $47m to Switched Source to partner with Florida Power and Light.
Such projects will form a part of the state’s long-term recovery from Hurricanes Milton and Helene, which raged over the state over a period of less than two weeks between late September and this Wednesday, when Milton made landfall as a Category 3 storm.
The latter hurircane alone was one of the strongest in recent history, rapidly intensifying faster than any other Gulf of Mexico storm on record, with the highest winds of a Gulf storm since 2005’s Hurricane Rita.
At least 23 people in Florida are dead as a result of Milton.
The fallen include a woman crushed by a tree in her bedroom in Ormond Beach, an 89-year-old who had a cardiac emergency as paramedics were unable to answer calls, and an Orange County man electrocuted while cleaning post-storm detritus, according to The Tampa Bay Times.
One of the hardest-hit individual communities was Lakewood Park, where a tornado on the outer bands of Milton tore through Spanish Lakes Country Club Village, a retirement community of mobile homes and houses built around a golf course.
The ensuing destruction killed six and hospitalized 30 people.
“The pain — it’s not just me,” Michael Bartholomew, a 56-year-old licensed heavy-equipment operator from the area, toldThe Washington Post. “It’s my whole neighborhood, my whole community.”
In addition to the dead and injured, scores of others were trapped in their homes due to rising flood waters across the state.
More than 1,000 people had been rescued in Florida as of Saturday, according to governor Ron DeSantis.
“Fortunately we never had the 15- to 20- feet storm surge, but still, rising waters, very dangerous, and these guys have sprung into action,” the governor said at a public briefing.
Residents are also struggling with a fuel shortage, prompting long lines at gas stations and the state to open three free fuel depots in Manatee, Pinellas, and Hillsborough counties, with plans to open others in Sarasota amd Charlotte counties, as well as additional locations in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties.
Wilmer Guevara of Bradenton told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune he helped tow two stranded cars to one of the fuel depots.
“They ran out of gas and were pushing their car, so I decided to show some heart and help,” Guevara said in Spanish. “It’s hard to find gas, everywhere is crowded. It helps that the gas is free because everything is so expensive in this economy.”
An estimated 889,000 people remain without power in the state.
The storm may have moved out in the Atlantic Ocean, but it left behind elevated water levels in rivers across Florida.
Flood warnings are in effect in Pasco, Hernando, Hillsborough, Citrus, LEvy, DeSoto, Alachua, Volusia and Seminole counties.
The storm also caused striking damage to prominent buildings in the state, including ripping the roof off the Tampa Bay Rays baseball stadium in St. Petersburg, and sending a construction crane crashing through the offices of the Tampa Bay Times.