President Joe Biden will travel to North Carolina and South Carolina on Wednesday to survey the damage from Hurricane Helene, which made landfall as a category 4 hurricane in Florida last week before sweeping through several states in the South. 

A White House official said that Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to Georgia on Wednesday and will visit North Carolina "in the coming days."

The White House said Tuesday that Biden will get an aerial tour of storm damage in the western part of North Carolina, receive operational briefings and meet with first responders and local officials. He'll also meet with first responders and officials in South Carolina on his way to North Carolina.

The president announced his plan to visit North Carolina during remarks to the press in the Oval Office Monday afternoon after receiving a virtual briefing from the state’s Gov. Roy Cooper and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell. His Homeland Security adviser, Liz Sherwood-Randall, attended the meeting with the president in-person. 

Biden said he will visit Georgia and Florida after his trip to the Tar Heel State “as soon possible.” 

Biden said he planned to arrive in Raleigh on Wednesday to first participate in a meeting with the Emergency Operations Center before doing an aerial tour of the damage. 

He noted that the state has reopened 220 roads to help responders reach people, adding that there are thousands of personnel from the federal government on the ground assisting with search and rescue efforts, green removal, power restoration, and restoring cell networks. 

“It's going to take a hell of a long time,” Biden said while pledging that his administration would be there until the end. 

“I’ve been on the ground at many disaster areas since I’ve been president and I’ve heard dozens of stories from survivors about how it feels to be left with nothing,” Biden said during remarks on Monday morning. “I’m here to tell every single survivor in these impacted areas that we will be there with you as long as it takes.” 

As of Tuesday, the storm had left at least 135 people dead across six states. Two million remained without power, Sherwood-Randall told reporters during Monday’s White House press briefing. 

Cooper on Monday said that he and Biden had discussed addressing medical needs and getting additional helicopters and land bridges for search and rescue efforts in his state. 

“All of those things are happening now, we just know that the commodities are going to have to continue for weeks,” the North Carolina governor said in front of the press in the Oval Office on Monday. 

He pointed to storm-ravaged Asheville, positioned in Buncombe County, where at least 40 people have died, as an example of an area that will need continued assistance due to the city’s water system being down. 

“So getting water in here on a sustained basis is going to be critical,” Cooper said.

Biden noted that the Defense Department is going to provide additional helicopters. 

Meanwhile, more than 3,600 federal personnel have been deployed to disaster areas, a number that is “growing by the day,” Biden earlier on Monday. 

The president also noted that the Small Business Administration and FEMA are on the ground to assist those whose homes and businesses have been destroyed. The Federal Communications Commission, he added, was assisting with emergency mobile communications assets, as network services are down.

“There are reports of up to 600 people unaccounted for because they can’t be contacted,” Biden said. “God willing, they’re alive but there is no way to contact them, again, because of the lack of cell phone coverage.”

Cooper added that he was grateful for Criswell’s presence on the ground in North Carolina on Monday.

“She’s going to be staying and making sure we surge assets into the area to get people food and water and to get the power back on,” the North Carolina governor said. 

During remarks at the White House earlier on Monday, before he announced his own planned visit to the state, Biden stressed that he wanted to ensure that a trip to any impacted area would not be a disruption. 

Former President Donald Trump visited another impacted community, Valdosta, in Georgia on Monday while his Democratic rival for the White House in November, Vice President Kamala Harris cut her campaign swing out west short to return to Washington, where she received a briefing at FEMA headquarters Monday afternoon. 

During brief remarks on Monday, Harris noted that she has spoken with the governors of Georgia and North Carolina and referred to the destruction in those states, along with Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia as “heartbreaking.” 

“Over the past few days, our nation has ensured some of the worst destruction and devastation that we have seen in quite some time and we have responded with our best,” Harris said, before repeating a version of a line she uses often on the campaign trail. 

“Moments like this remind us we have so much more in common than what separates us,” she said.  

Harris said she plans to visit affected communities as soon as possible “without disrupting any emergency response operations.”

“That must be the highest priority and the first order of business,” she added. 

Trump on Monday also claimed that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp was having a hard time getting Biden on the phone, despite the Republican governor himself saying he spoke with the president.

“He’s lying, the governor told me he was lying, I’ve spoken to the governor and spent time with him,” Biden said on Monday when asked about Trump’s claims. “I don’t know why he does this and the reason I get so angry is – I don’t care what he says about me, I care what he communicates to the people that are in need.”