Biden: We Gotta Rebuild Better

Editor’s note: Here is what President Joe Biden said January 19 in Capitola Village

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Governor, You and I gotta stop taking these helicopter rides. We’ve made a bunch of them, you’ve been hit. If anybody doubts climate is changing and they must have been asleep for the last couple of years. I want to thank you, governor, you and I along with the Vice President, have been in close touch since this storm hit and even before it hit, we were talking about it coming.

We told the governor that we’d do everything we can, whatever he needs. But he’s been through a whole hell of a lot, I don’t know what, we had three or four flights up and down the state for the wildfires and the damage done.

It’s been astounding what you’ve done and I want to say what I said then and I’ll say again, the federal government’s not leaving its responsibility until it’s all fixed — it’s done.

You know, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor, I want to thank you and the county supervisor and local officials, the first responders for all that you have done and all you have been dealing with to try to protect your constituents in a way that gives them some — I guess maybe the thing that’s most needed in the times is — sense of hope that everything’s going to be able to be done, everything fixed.

And I want to thank the entire California delegation for working with my administration Alex (Sen. Padilla) and Jimmy (Rep. Panetta), thank you for what you’ve done being with me today.

And you know, we did an aerial tour of the damage. And unlike when we did the aerial tour of the fires, it’s not as obvious from the air just how much damage has been done.

We flew over the entire area and parts of the state, the entire, you know, they got more rainfall in a single day than they get in an entire year in parts of the state.

Drenching rain, powerful winds, floods, landslides, but you don’t feel until you walk the streets or what, when you’re able to walk. And you know, toppling and thousands of trees, 20,000 customers, 200,000 customers lost their power through the storms. Now it’s less than 5,000, but it’s still 5,000 people don’t have power. We got to get it down to zero.

Nearly 150,000 people were under evacuation orders. Now it’s down to 1,400 under evacuation orders and under 300 people are still in shelters, but tragically 21 people died.

And that little boy, we’re still trying to find. Everybody I’ve talked to so far today just spontaneously brings that up. You know, the fact is, you know, Jill and I have him in our prayers, the family and our prayers and all of you.

You know, while the situation is still treacherous, we’re cautiously optimistic that the worst part is behind. The waters recede, but we’ll see the full extent of the damage the homes, the businesses and the farms and ranches and we now we know some of the destruction is going to take years to fully recover and rebuild.

But we gotta not just rebuild. We gotta rebuild better. We gotta rebuild better.

Last week I signed an expedited major disaster declaration for the state of California. Yesterday I directed the federal government that will cover 100% of the cost of removing debris and emergency measures like sheltering evacuees and paying overtime for first responders for the next 60 days. Excuse me, for 60 days.

Right now, more than 500 employees of FEMA are out here and other federal agencies on the ground trying to help people. FEMA positioned supplies for 100,000 meals, 100,000 liters of water, 20,000 blankets, 10,000 cots for shelters.

And there will be disaster recovery centers in every impacted area, including Santa Cruz (one opened in Capitola the next day) and Merced, where survivors can apply for assistance and if their homes and their small businesses are damaged, that’s already underway.

The Army Corps of Engineers is helping remove heavy debris safely and monitoring seven reservoirs in the Central Valley in the San Francisco Bay area.

I’ve instructed my administration to bring every element, every element of the federal government together with the help of immediate needs to long-term rebuilding, to do both. We have to, in terms of the infrastructure, there’s got to be significant changes made and the federal government is gonna be here to help get that done.

For example, the Department of Agriculture is helping farmers with disaster loans and grants if they lost livestock or their crops are washed away.

The Small Business Administration and somebody with me when it isn’t through the small business along the piers here, it’s devastating what happened. But they’re going to get help, help local businesses with low-interest loans so they can recover.

And now if you don’t have insurance or if you’re underinsured, FEMA is going to get you started on home repairs, replacing lost or damaged property, like cars and refrigerators, things inside the home, they’ll be able to be replaced quickly. To apply for assistance from FEMA, go online to disasterassistance.gov. Disasterassistance.gov.

You can also sign up in person for disaster recovery centers. In the coming days, they’re gonna be at least seven centers open across this state and FEMA is going to deploy disaster survivor assistance teams to communities that need them the most. We can go to the FEMA website to find that location and look as I’ve said, other disasters.

Building Back Stronger

The key is not just building back is building back stronger. Just since I became president, we’ve spent $9 billion on storms, more intense droughts, longer wildfire seasons, all of which threaten communities across California.

So we have to invest in stronger infrastructure to lessen the impact of these disasters because they become cumulative in the sense. We’ve already allocated funding from the infrastructure law that I signed a year ago and more than $16 billion for more than 480 projects across this state, making the California power grid more resilient, building stronger levees, clearing hazardous fuels and reforesting lands protecting to protect against wildfires.

And together we can better prepare for future disasters, reduce the damage they cause and the people’s lives and livelihoods that are affected.

So let me close with this. To the people in California, I say it again. The country is here for you and with you. We are not leaving till things are built back and build back better than they were before. You can recover from storms. We’ll be with you every step of the way.

And I mean that sincerely, every step.

God bless you all and may God protect our first responders who we owe more than I could take time to talk about today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[Question about vice presidential classified documents found at Biden’s home, garage and office] I will answer the question. But here’s the deal. You know what quite frankly bugged me is that we have a serious problem here. We’re talking about what’s going on and the American people don’t quite understand why you don’t ask me questions about that.

But having said that, What’s your question? Okay. As we found, we found a handful of documents were failed, were filed in the wrong place. We immediately turned them over to the archives and the Justice Department. We’re fully cooperating, looking forward to getting this resolved quickly. I think you’re gonna find there’s nothing there.

I have no regrets and following what the lawyers have told me they want me to do. That’s exactly what we’re doing. There’s no “there” there.

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Photos Courtesy of the Capitola Police Social Media Team