Biden, assessing the consequences of Milton, announces $600 million for reconstruction in Florida and other states

President Joe Biden announced during a briefing in storm-ravaged Florida on Sunday that more than $600 million will flow to states affected by hurricanes Helene and Milton, which also devastated Georgia and North Carolina.

During remarks in St. Pete Beach, a barrier island city near St. Petersburg, Biden said nearly $100 million of the money would go toward improvements to Florida’s energy system. He noted that it was the second time he had visited the state in two weeks.

“Fortunately, the impact of the storm was not as cataclysmic as we anticipated,” Biden said. “But for some individuals it was cataclysmic. All those people who not only lost their homes, but more importantly, those people who lost their lives, lost family members.”

Biden spoke alongside St. Pete Beach Mayor Adrian Petrila and Pinellas County Chairwoman Kathleen Peters, noting that both suffered damage to their homes from the storms. “But they went out of their way to not only take care of themselves, but to help other families, to help their neighbors. You know, that’s the resilience of the people of West Florida.”

Florida authorities have confirmed 17 deaths in the aftermath of Milton after landfall near Tampa last week. More than a million residents are still without power because of the storm, which occurred shortly after the impact of Hurricane Helene on September 26.

Before the storm, the Biden administration sought to combat misinformation about emergency funds flowing into the state. One conspiracy theory that circulated online and was spread by politicians such as former President Donald Trump and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, was that Federal Emergency Management Agency money was being spent to support illegal immigrants in the U.S., leaving the agency without the necessary resources to support hurricane victims.

On a FEMA fact-checking page, the agency disputed the misinformation, writing: “This is false. No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance are funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a fund dedicated to disaster efforts. Money from the Disaster Relief Fund was not diverted to other non-disaster efforts.”

FEMA uses Disaster Relief Fund money exclusively for this purpose. The agency was also tasked in 2022 with distributing Customs and Border Protection money to areas dealing with an influx of migrants.

Biden’s visit on Sunday also comes as Trump continues to make false claims about the federal response, including that the government is not providing aid to some areas.

Florida lawmakers are seeking more disaster relief for affected communities and have pushed for House leadership to meet to approve more money.

On NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told moderator Kristen Welker that he did not believe it was necessary for the House to return from recess so soon after the hurricanes.

“We are already scheduled to return right after the election,” he said. “There are 23 days left until the elections. This will coincide almost perfectly, I think, with the time for most of these (requests for humanitarian aid) to begin and many of them to be processed.”

The speaker also pointed to the money Congress allocated for humanitarian relief in a continuing resolution passed last month before they went into recess, telling Welker that the federal government needs to “work through the distribution of the funds that Congress has already set aside. “

“This is a really important thing. People are hurting. I’ve been on the ground in the areas hardest hit by the disaster, Florida and North Carolina. They really need help,” Johnson added.