Trump heads to Florida for first-hand look at Irma damage

President Trump boards Air Force One. — (Image credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)

President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are scheduled to visit Naples and Fort Myers on Florida's southwest coast on Thursday to see damage from Hurricane Irma and hear from people affected by the storm. Trump said in a Wednesday tweet that he planned to meet "with our great Coast Guard, FEMA and many of the brave first responders & others."

Sixty-six percent of homes and businesses in Lee County, which includes Fort Myers, remained without power on Wednesday, and 80 percent in Collier County, which includes Naples, remained in the dark. About a third of the state's population, about 6.8 million people, still have no electricity in the state's late-summer heat.

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.