Former president Donald Trump opened a political rally in Michigan by breaking his week-long silence on Hurricane Ian, the category five storm that has devastated his home state of Florida.
Speaking in Warren, Michigan, Mr Trump said he wanted to send “profound sympathy and our immense support to everyone back in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas who are struck by this brutal wrath of the hurricane”.
“Not a good hurricane. This was a big one,” he said, adding that he wanted to “say hello to everybody” in the affected area.
“We want to say we love you very much ... please know our hearts are with you and our prayers are with you,” he said.
Mr Trump, a former New Yorker, moved to Florida after leaving the White House. He switched his residency to the Sunshine State during his term in the White House, citing the myriad New York-based investigations into his conduct as the reason for abandoning his place of birth.
He took up residence at Mar-a-Lago, the mansion turned private members club located on Florida’s southeast coast in Palm Beach. The facility appears to have been undamaged by the hurricane which made landfall in the southwest before traveling northeast across the state.
Hurricane Ian, which has since been downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone, tore through Florida and left at least 64 people dead with billions of dollars in damage to buildings across a wide swath of the state.
