Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has visited North Carolina as the state recovers from Hurricane Helene, arriving there one day after Republican Donald Trump, who is spreading false claims about the federal response to the disaster.
The vice president was greeted at the airport by Governor Roy Cooper among others on Saturday and quickly headed into a briefing with emergency response officials about the recovery effort.
Earlier in the week, Harris was in Georgia, where she helped distribute meals, toured the damage and consoled families hard-hit by the storm.
President Joe Biden, too, visited the disaster zone. During stops over two days in the Carolinas, Florida and Georgia, Biden surveyed the damage and met with farmers whose crops have been destroyed.
Kamala Harris was briefed on recovery efforts. (AP PHOTO)
The two have been vocal and visible about the government's willingness to help, and the administration's efforts so far include covering costs for all of the rescue and recovery efforts across the southeast for several months as states struggle under the weight of the mass damage.
In a letter late on Friday to congressional leaders, Biden wrote that while the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Disaster Relief Fund "has the resources it requires right now to meet immediate needs, the fund does face a shortfall at the end of the year".
More than 200 people have died. It's the worst storm to hit the US mainland since Katrina in 2005, and scientists have warned such storms will only worsen in the face of climate change.
But in this overheated election year, even natural disasters have become deeply politicised as the candidates crisscross the disaster area and in some cases visit the same venues to win over voters in battleground states.
Trump has falsely claimed the Biden administration isn't doing enough to help impacted people in Republican areas and has harshly criticised the response. He has, in Helene's aftermath, espoused falsehoods about climate change, calling it "one of the great scams of all time".
During a stop in Fayetteville, North Carolina on Thursday, Trump renewed his complaints about the federal response and cited "lousy treatment to North Carolina in particular".
In fact, Cooper said this week that more than 50,000 people have registered for FEMA assistance and about $US6 million ($A8.8m) has been paid out.
Harris' visits present an additional political test in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. She's trying to step into a role for which Biden is well known — showing the empathy that Americans expect in times of tragedy — in the closing stretch of her White House campaign.
Until this week, she had not visited the scene of a humanitarian crisis as vice president. That duty was reserved for Biden, who has frequently been called on to survey damage and console victims after tornadoes, wildfires, tropical storms and more.