WATCH: Harris delivers remarks after attending Helene response briefing in North Carolina

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris pledged continued federal support and praised the “heroes among us” as she visited North Carolina Saturday in the wake of Hurricane Helene, her second trip to the disaster zone in four days.

The vice president was in Charlotte a day after a state visit by Republican Donald Trump, who spread false claims about the federal response to the disaster.

Harris opened her visit by attending a briefing with state and local officials where she thanked “those who are in the room and those who are out there right now, working around the clock.”

She promised that federal aid would continue to flow and also praised the “strangers who help each other and offer people shelter, food, friendship and companionship.”

Despite Trump’s claims that the federal response in the state has been “poor,” Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said the state is “deeply grateful for the federal resources available to us.” FEMA has been with us from the beginning ” he said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

REGARD: Biden and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper hold a briefing on Helene’s recovery

After her briefing, Harris helped pack toiletries into relief packages at a distribution center, where she met Angelica Wind of hard-hit Asheville, who was there volunteering with her daughter and a friend, although Wind said her own family was still without power and People “just survived.”

“There’s a lot of resilience,” Wind told Harris, adding, “We want to make sure people don’t forget about us.”

Harris assured her that the federal government was “here for the long haul.”

Melissa Funderbunk told Harris how she drove a truck that delivered help to people in remote Morganton, “where no people came.”

“You are the heroes among us,” Harris said.

Earlier this week, Harris was in Georgia, where she helped distribute meals, surveyed the damage and comforted families hit hard by the storm. President Joe Biden also visited the disaster area. During two-day stops in the Carolinas, Florida and Georgia, Biden surveyed the damage and met with farmers whose crops were destroyed.

The two of them clearly and visibly expressed the government’s willingness to help. The government’s efforts so far include covering the cost of all rescue and recovery efforts across the Southeast for several months as states struggle under the weight of mass damage.

In a letter late Friday to congressional leaders, Biden wrote that while FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund “has the resources it currently needs to meet immediate needs, the fund faces a deficit at the end of the year.” He also urged lawmakers to act quickly to restore funding to the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program.

More than 200 people have died. It is the worst storm to hit the U.S. mainland since Katrina in 2005, and scientists have warned that such storms will only get worse in the face of climate change.

But in this overheated election year, even natural disasters have become heavily politicized as candidates traverse the disaster zone and, in some cases, visit the same locations to win over voters in battleground states.

Trump has falsely claimed that the Biden administration is not doing enough to help affected people in Republican areas and has sharply criticized the response. In Helene’s aftermath, he spread falsehoods about climate change, calling it “one of the biggest scams of all time.”

During a stop in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Thursday, Trump renewed his complaints about the federal response, citing the “poor treatment of North Carolina in particular.” In fact, Cooper said this week that more than 50,000 people had registered for FEMA assistance and about $6 million had been paid out.

Biden has suggested that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., withhold money for disaster relief.

Reported for a long time from Washington. Associated Press writers Makiya Seminera in Boone, North Carolina, and Meg Kinnard in Fayetteville, North Carolina, contributed to this report.