Biden vows to help California ‘build back better’ after storms during his visit to the coast

After a three-week barrage of winter storms devastated communities across California, President Joe Biden on Thursday stood in front of a calm Pacific Ocean under blue skies and vowed to help residents of the Golden State rebuild.

“The country is here for you and with you,” he said. “We are not leaving till things are built back — and built back better than they ever were.”

President Biden’s remarks came during a brief visit Thursday to assess the extensive damage caused by widespread flooding, powerful winds, landslides and toppled trees after a series of powerful atmospheric rivers swept through the state.

The storms, which began on Dec. 26, have caused 21 deaths and more than $1 billion in estimated damage statewide. Gov. Gavin Newsom and Biden both noted that the death toll does not include 5-year-old Kyle Doan of San Luis Obispo County, who is still missing after flood waters swept him away from his mother.

Biden touched down just before noon at the Bay Area’s Moffet Federal Airfield. Shortly after his arrival, he boarded a helicopter with Newsom, Sen. Alex Padilla and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell for an aerial tour of the storm damage. He then visited heavy-hit areas of Santa Cruz County, including the scenic seaside village of Capitola and a famous state beach in Aptos.

Newsom commended the Biden administration for its support both during and after the storms. Biden has granted major disaster declarations for Santa Cruz, Sacramento, Merced, Sacramento, Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. Under the declaration, the federal government will cover up to 100% of costs incurred by public agencies for debris removal and other measures. It also allows residents to seek federal disaster assistance funds.

“The scale and scope of these floods are hard to understand unless you get out,” Newsom said from Seacliffs State Beach in Aptos. “That’s why I couldn’t be more grateful to the president for taking the time to come out, again, to the state of California to take a look firsthand at some of the damage.”

Californians come out to see President Biden

Hundreds of people assembled along Biden’s motorcade route, waving the vehicles on with smiles and signs. The streets near Seacliff State Beach in Aptos, Biden’s last stop, were lined with people hoping to catch a glimpse of the president. A single “Trump won” flag seemed to be one of the only voices of dissent in the crowd.

Aptos resident Kate St. Clair, 74, said she was excited to see a sitting president visit her hometown. St. Clair said she typically starts each day with a walk along the ocean, but damage from the storms led officials to block off access to the public beach.

“It was awful,” St. Clair said of the storms. “I’d wake up in a state of anxiety because it just felt like something disastrous was going to happen. Maybe not to me but it was just in the air.”

Anthony Carrillo and Rod Smalley, representatives of Operating Engineers Local 3, held up a banner for their union while donning construction vests and helmets. The pair said they came out to show their support for Biden and the $1 trillion infrastructure bill he signed in November 2021.

“We couldn’t let the president come through and not say thank you,” Carrillo said, adding that the union represents thousands of workers across 90 California cities, many of whom will be helping with recovery efforts.

Biden and Newsom talk about California storms

During his time on the coast, Biden met with business owners and local residents in Capitola and thanked first responders and state and local officials for their recovery efforts in Aptos. Both coastal areas suffered significant damage from powerful ocean swells and fierce onshore winds that destroyed a historic wharf, took out a section of a famous pier and flooded dozens of beachfront homes and businesses.

Before the president spoke at his last stop, Newsom took the microphone and praised Biden for his “empathy,” “care” and “compassion.”

“Trust me, that matters,” Newsom said, noting that Biden administration reached out to offer assistance before Newsom officially requested it.

The cordial remarks appeared to signal an end — or at least a pause — to the apparent tensions between the president and California governor, a rising national Democratic star who is thought to have presidential ambitions.

Newsom made national headlines last year for loudly denouncing Republican governors and their values, while also chastising leaders of the Democratic party for failing to put up a bigger fight. Then, Biden in September intervened in a contentious state matter when he offered his support for a bill that made it easier for farm workers to organize. Newsom’s office initially said the governor would not approve the bill, though he later signed it into law.

Standing in front of the severely damaged pier at Seacliffs State Beach, Biden on Thursday said he expected it would take “years” for California to fully recover and rebuild from the catastrophic storms. He promised, however, that the federal government would not abandon its responsibility to assist the state “till it’s all fixed, it’s done.”

Biden and other top-ranking federal officials on the tour attributed the extreme weather to climate change but whether global warming played a role in these storms is being debated by some experts.

FEMA Administrator Criswell on Thursday told a press gaggle that the unprecedented storms were part of a pattern of a “steady increase in the number of disasters” that are more intense and severe, leading to longer and more challenging recoveries.

“We’ve never seen nine atmospheric rivers in a period of just a few weeks like this,” Criswell said. “And so, we have to be prepared for this increase in the number of weather events and severe weather events that we’re seeing.”

Biden joked that Newsom and him “had to stop taking helicopter rides like this,” noting similar aerial tours in recent years of wildfire damage. “If anyone doubts that the climate is changing,” he said, “then they must have been asleep for the last couple of years.”

Concerns that storms like this could become more frequent have led to calls for California to update its flood infastructure and capture more rainfall. Republican leaders have condemned Democrats for failing to expedite pending water storage projects.

State Sen. Brian Dahle, R-Bieber, responded to the governor’s latest claims by pointing out the five ways California is “FAILING” to store water from these recent storms.

“What we are seeing with these storms is a state that has failed to build new water storage for 40 years, and water is pouring out to sea as a result,” Dahle said in a statement Thursday.

“California has missed yet another opportunity and the governor can make claims all he wants, but the fact is when presented with real opportunities to capture and store this rain, the majority party blocked the proposals time and time again.”

This story was originally published January 19, 2023 at 2:40 PM.