NAPLES, Fla. _ President Donald Trump touched down Thursday in hurricane-hit Florida, where the full reckoning of Irma's fury is still uppermost in many people's minds four days after the storm tore through the state.
With hundreds of thousands still without electricity and particular worries for the state's large elderly population and others vulnerable to oppressive heat, the president and first lady Melania Trump arrived aboard Air Force One in Fort Myers on the peninsula's southwestern Gulf coast.
"I think we're doing a good job in Florida," Trump said in a brief question-and-answer session with reporters. Addressing a group of rescue workers and officials assembled in an airport hangar, he paid special tribute to first responders and Gov. Rick Scott.
The governor, flanking him, in turn praised the White House and federal response. "As you know, our state's been devastated," said Scott.
Joined by Vice President Mike Pence, who arrived in the state earlier, Trump met with local officials and received a briefing on relief efforts before boarding Marine One for the short flight to Naples, 40 miles away and close to where Irma made its second landfall in Florida.
The nascent restoration drive is projected to take months and cost billions of dollars, after the storm devastated parts of the Florida Keys, triggered serious flooding in the northern part of the state and upended daily life in major cities and small towns in between.
The presidential visit to Florida comes a day after at least eight patients died in a sweltering nursing home in Hollywood, Fla., that was left with limited power after Irma pounded the region. Authorities said a criminal investigation is underway, and some local elected officials have called on the secretary of Health and Human Services to look into what happened.
For Trump, Thursday's trip is the third visit to a disaster area in less than three weeks. He previously traveled to Texas and Louisiana to meet with victims and first responders after Hurricane Harvey.
After initial stumbles and criticism over a perceived lack of empathy for those affected, the president has appeared more comfortable in the role of consoler-in-chief, tasked with the ceremonial duty of rallying flagging spirits in the hurricane zone.
Still, Trump raised some eyebrows by injecting politics into Thursday's visit, declaring in his arrival remarks that Scott, a Republican, should run for the Senate, challenging Democrat Bill Nelson. He also struck a somewhat odd note in announcing that he wanted to make sure storm-affected people were "happy."
In Florida, rising temperatures and a lack of power have made it especially difficult for seniors and children in the days since Irma.
Some preemptive evacuations were underway to protect nursing home residents. Fire rescue teams removed 122 people from two assisted-living facilities near Orlando as a safety measure, a fire department spokeswoman said.
In suburban Fort Lauderdale, residents of an assisted-living facility that lost power were moved to similar institutions close by that had electricity.
School classes, too, remained disrupted. Officials from the Miami-Dade Public School District said schools would remain closed the rest of the week because of power issues. In Naples, the Collier County Public School District remains closed and will not reopen until next week.
Statewide, more than 2.7 million lacked power. But both Trump and Scott pointed to progress.
Late Wednesday, Florida Power & Light reported that nearly 442,000 of its 1.1 million customers in Miami-Dade County were without power. In nearby Broward County, 300,000 were without electricity, but repairs were moving ahead.
Since Irma made landfall Sunday, 13 people in Florida have been killed in storm-related circumstances _ in some cases during cleanup efforts _ in addition to those who died at the nursing home. Elsewhere, Irma was blamed for four deaths in South Carolina and two in Georgia.
At least 37 people were killed in the Caribbean, where the storm, then a much more powerful Category 5 hurricane, devastated a string of Leeward Islands in the eastern Caribbean.
