Following three weeks of catastrophic “atmospheric river” storms that caused floods and mudslides in parts of California, U.S. President, Joe Biden has harped on the role that global warming plays in natural disasters as he toured the affected areas on Thursday.
Addressing a crowd at Seacliff State Beach along the Santa Cruz coastline, where a crumpled pier stood as a testament to the destructive force of the recent storms, Biden said: “If anybody doubts that the climate is changing, then they must have been asleep during the last couple of years.”
“Extreme weather caused by climate change leads to stronger and more frequent storms, more intense droughts and longer wildfire seasons, all of which threaten communities across California,” he added.
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Governor Gavin Newsom and other government representatives welcomed the president when he landed at Moffett Federal Airfield in Santa Clara County, south of San Francisco, with the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Deanne Criswell.
Biden also paid a personal visit to residents and business owners along the waterfront in Capitola, where the picturesque coastal enclave’s wharf lay in ruins, then stopped in nearby Seacliff for brief remarks promising that FEMA teams would stay “until it’s all fixed and done.”
Recall that earlier this week, Biden signed a major disaster declaration authorizing federal recovery aid for several northern and central California counties. He said nearly 150,000 people were under evacuation orders at the winter storm crisis’s peak, and some 1,400 remained displaced as of Thursday.
Story was adapted from Reuters.
