WASHINGTON >> President Joe Biden on Wednesday took an aerial tour of the devastation from Hurricane Helene and ordered the Pentagon to deploy up to 1,000 active-duty troops to assist with aid efforts as rescue workers continued dangerous rescue missions in remote mountain communities.

Biden’s visit to the Carolinas came as the death toll from the storm rose to at least 183 people Wednesday, making Helene the deadliest hurricane to strike the mainland United States since Katrina, which caused nearly 1,400 deaths in 2005, according to statistics from the National Hurricane Center.

“Nobody can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore — at least I hope they don’t. They must be brain-dead if they do,” Biden said during a briefing on the rescue efforts later in Raleigh, North Carolina, reflecting on the devastation he saw during the flyover, including flattened mountain towns and homes swept down rivers.

“Today in North Carolina, I saw the impacts of that fury,” he added.

Earlier in the day, Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, told reporters traveling with the president that the costly relief effort so far could burn through much of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s funding for the rest of the year, leaving the agency unprepared for another major disaster this season unless Congress returns from recess to authorize more funds.

“We are meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have,” Mayorkas told reporters. “We are expecting another hurricane hitting — we do not have the funds, FEMA does not have the funds, to make it through the season.”

At the briefing in Raleigh, Biden demanded that lawmakers step up to keep the agency funded.

“It’s going to cost billions of dollars to deal with the storm and all the communities affected,” the president said.

But earlier Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said lawmakers would not return to Washington before the November election to consider an emergency spending package.

After briefly meeting with a group of officials in South Carolina, including Sen. Lindsey Graham and Gov. Henry McMaster, Biden surveyed some of the hardest-hit portions of North Carolina from the air while rescue teams worked below. He flew over Asheville and Lake Lure, North Carolina, alongside the state’s governor, Roy Cooper, and Asheville’s mayor, Esther Manheimer.

The decision to observe the scene from the air was informed by the severe conditions on the ground, in which more than 1,200 personnel from FEMA and other agencies were still looking for survivors and racing to bring in food and fuel, Mayorkas said.

“What he does not want to do is in any way impair or impede the rescue that we are providing,” he said.

While the president took in the destruction in North Carolina, Vice President Kamala Harris visited the Augusta Emergency Operations Center in Georgia to thank a group of emergency medical workers.

“There’s a lot of work that’s going to need to happen over the coming days, weeks and months, and the coordination that we have dedicated ourselves to will be long-lasting,” she said.

Biden was to meet with officials in Florida and Georgia on Thursday.