“In disaster response, every second counts. A week went by while the citizens of North Carolina suffered without the equipment and soldiers needed to save lives and begin recovery. This is the sort of bureaucratic hiccup that engaged political leaders solve. A competent leader would have ordered those men and women into motion earlier, bureaucracy be damned. Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden treated the situation like a public-relations disaster instead of a real one.

...

"President Trump and I are realists. We know there’s no perfect disaster recovery and that a storm like Helene will bring hardship to American towns no matter how well the government responds. But this wasn’t the response that the people of Western North Carolina deserved. As Hurricane Milton barrels toward the Florida coast and Secretary Mayorkas claims FEMA is running out of disaster funds, it’s time the Biden-Harris administration got its act together."

Read the full op-ed here.