Biden to name official to oversee long-term Maui recovery effort

President Biden will travel to Maui on Monday to survey the destruction caused by deadly wildfires, where he will meet with first responders and announce the appointment of a federal coordinator to oversee long-term recovery efforts on the island.

The president and first lady Jill Biden will travel from Lake Tahoe in Nevada, where they are vacationing for the week, to the island as local officials continue to work to identify victims and sort through the damage caused by wildfires this month, which killed more than 100 people.

Biden will take an aerial tour of the impacted areas, a White House official said, followed by a briefing from state and local officials on the ground.

The president will also deliver remarks paying respects to those killed by the fires, the White House official said. In his remarks, Biden will announce the appointment of Bob Fenton as the chief federal response coordinator to oversee the long-term recovery effort.

“As the recovery moves into a next phase, the President has directed Mr. Fenton, who has been a leader in the response from the earliest hours, to make sure every member of this devastated community has access to everything the federal government can offer to heal and rebuild as fast as possible,” a White House official said.

Fenton served as the White House’s coordinator for the mpox response as the virus spread in the United States last year. Fenton earlier worked on setting up mass vaccination sites in the COVID-19 response. 

Officials have noted that almost 500 federal personnel have been deployed to Maui as of last week, and Biden signed a major disaster declaration to provide additional assistance. The president faced some criticism from Republicans over his initial lack of public comments on the fires as the death toll rapidly climbed.

But in the past week Biden has addressed the topic in public speeches, spoken by phone multiple times with state officials and issued statements on the situation, while FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell has attended multiple press briefings. Biden had said he wanted to wait to visit the island until it was clear he would not get in the way of recovery and rescue efforts.

Updated at 10:39 a.m.