A woman sitting in the rubble, with protective gloves and large boots, looks up at the President of the United States, in a navy blue suit, cap on her head: Joe Biden came on Wednesday, December 15 to pledge his help to the inhabitants of Kentucky, a state hit by a devastating storm, in a rare moment of national unity.

After a helicopter flight, the 79-year-old Democrat strolled through Mayfield, one of the communities most affected by the tornadoes that swept through this rural and conservative state in the southeastern United States last Friday, making at least 74 dead.

>> To see, our slide show: "In the United States, landscapes of chaos after a deadly historic tornado"

The US president spoke to residents and stopped in the street for a short moment of meditation.

Around him, collapsed buildings, heaps of bricks, wood, sheet metal, where construction machinery and workers dressed in fluorescent yellow are busy.

“What I saw is an amazing bunch of people coming together, helping each other out. And hopeful. We're going to stay here until it's over and rebuilt, "he told reporters, ending his visit.

"Common ground"

Shortly before, during a meeting with local officials in a shed where food and water bottles are stored, the president had launched: "There are no red tornadoes or blue tornadoes", in reference in the respective colors of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, his own.

"It's very important that (the president) comes. It shows that there are still people in Washington who are interested in rural America," Bryan Wilson, lawyer at Mayfield, told AFP. by rummaging through what remains of his desk for documents to save.

Same tone for Brad Mills, 63-year-old orthodontist, who came with his son to assess the damage in the office built by his grandfather in the center of the stricken city.

"We are divided on so many subjects but here we can find common ground," he said, referring to the particularly sour political climate in the United States.

>> To see: "United States: after the tornadoes, a surge of solidarity in the town of Mayfield"

With this exceptional meteorological phenomenon, which also claimed at least 14 victims in Tennessee, Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas, Joe Biden finds a rare opportunity for national unity, he who had promised during his campaign to bring together the 'America.

The US president is not going to conquered land, politically speaking: While Kentucky has a Democratic governor, the state gave Republican Donald Trump a very large majority in the 2020 election. And during his visit on Wednesday, reporters saw a Trump name flag on a pickup truck.

Joe Biden had taken care, before his departure, not to politicize the visit.

"The president sees people through the tragedy they are going through - the pain of having lost loved ones, of having lost their homes. (...) He sees them as human beings, not as people with partisan ties, ”spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Tuesday.

The American president spoke with great caution a link between these tornadoes and climate change, while in September, noting the devastation of storm Ida in New York and New Jersey, he spoke of "red alert "climate change and seized the opportunity to praise its major investment projects.

"We have to be very careful. We cannot say with absolute certainty that it is linked to climate change," he said on Monday, only calling the storms of the previous Friday "unusual".

With AFP

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