VALDOSTA — Many residents here are still without power even though it’s been roughly a week since Hurricane Helene tore a path from the Gulf of Mexico through the Southeast.
And that means many are unaware that President Joe Biden will make a trip to the area Thursday after stops in North Florida.
Told of Biden’s afternoon arrival, Jesse Evans, who was filling fuel tanks at a gas mart just north of Valdosta, said: “It’s a good thing for him to see firsthand. It’s the most devastating thing I’ve ever seen.”
Evans, 63, lives in Berrien County, where the president is scheduled to tour today. She had been awake when Helene and its 100-plus-mph winds came calling in the wee hours last Friday.
“I was sitting out in it,” Evans said, “because I don’t sleep good in bad weather. And when it hit … I went to hollering out for God to help me, because trees went to falling and breaking and tearing up stuff.”
The heart of Helene had by then roared over I-75, leveling a direct, crippling hit on Valdosta before veering northeast.
“There’s no telling when we’re going to get power again,” Evans said.
Biden will tour damage today in Ray City, a town that splits the borders of Berrien and Lanier counties and whose roads were rendered impassable by the storm. The president will also receive a briefing at the State Emergency Operations Center and meet with families and business owners looking to rebuild.
The president’s schedule shows him landing at Moody Air Force Base at 3:30 p.m. and spending a couple of hours in the area.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told journalists this morning that Gov. Brian Kemp was invited to join Biden but would not be doing so. The two spoke by phone instead.
Biden’s administration has approved federal disaster assistance for individuals, local governments and some nonprofits in Lowndes and 40 other hard-hit Georgia counties. Other areas could be added as federal and state emergency management officials continue to assess damage.
In the town of Cecil in Cook County, a dozen or so miles north of Valdosta, resident Helen Jewel Coley was getting by on generator power. Her front yard, next door to the tiny Jerusalem Baptist Church and home to a stand of 60-plus pine trees, only saw two felled by Helene. But one of them snapped power lines.
Coley, 79, and her sister, Evelyn Daniels-Hopkins, also had not heard the president was touring their region. Their cable TV was out and they hadn’t much followed the news, but they welcomed word of Biden’s visit.
“It means that he cares about us, what’s going on with us down here in this little area,” said Daniels-Hopkins, 79.
“He reminds me so much of Jimmy Carter and his work,” Coley added. “Jimmy Carter cared about little people in little towns.”
