President Biden said he plans to travel to Kentucky on Wednesday to see the aftermath of the deadly tornadoes that ripped across the state. Biden was meeting with advisers who had been on the ground in the state on Sunday in a briefing about the impact.
Biden said he talked to his aides about how to accelerate and expand aid to people in Kentucky.
He approved an emergency declaration for the state on the weekend, and said he was about to approve a request from the governor of Illinois as well. “So many people are facing immense, immense loss,” he said.
When he travels to Kentucky, the White House said Biden would be briefed at Ft. Campbell and then travel to Mayfield and Dawson Spring to survey the damage.
“The devastation is just stunning,” he said, showing reporters photos and a map of the impact. “They’ve been wiped out,” he said, describing some of the damage in Mayfield.
“I worry quite frankly about the mental health of these people,” Biden said. “What do you do? Where do you go?”
“We just want them to know we’re going to stay as long as it takes to help them,” he said.
Biden said it was one of the worst tornado disasters in the country, and said it was unusual. But he declined to say definitively that it was connected to climate change. “We can’t say with absolute certainty that it was because of climate change,” he said.
