President Biden on Tuesday warned those in the path of Hurricane Milton to “evacuate now, now, now,” as he canceled a diplomatic trip abroad so he could oversee his administration’s response to the storm barreling toward Florida’s west coast.
Speaking from the Roosevelt Room in the White House, the president said he had given Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, his personal phone number and he urged Floridians to listen to state authorities.
“I directed this team to do everything you can to save lives and our communities, help our community before, during and after these extreme weather events,” Mr. Biden told reporters after being briefed by disaster response officials. “And that’s being done.”
Evacuations, the president said, are “a matter of life and death.”
Mr. Biden said that Mr. DeSantis had “gotten all that he needs” from the federal government and that the two men had spoken on Monday evening.
“I said, ‘No, you’re doing a great job. It’s being all being done well, thank you for it,’ and I really gave him my personal phone number to call,” Mr. Biden said, describing the conversation.
Mr. Biden said the government had already “surged thousands” of emergency personnel across the Southeast as part of the response to Hurricane Helene. He said he had told officials that his priority was to increase the size and presence of those personnel.
