By Seung Min Kim, Darlene Superville and Danica Coto | Related Press
PONCE, Puerto Rico — President Joe Biden promised to “rebuild all of it” after arriving in Puerto Rico on Monday to survey harm from Hurricane Fiona, as tens of hundreds of individuals stay with out energy two weeks after the storm hit.
“I’m dedicated to this island,” he mentioned after receiving a briefing from native officers, acknowledging that Fiona was solely the newest in a string of disasters which have battered the U.S. territory lately.
“Puerto Ricans are a powerful folks,” Biden mentioned. “Besides, you will have needed to bear a lot, and greater than want be, and also you haven’t gotten the assist in a well timed manner.”
Hurricane Fiona knocked out electrical energy to the U.S. territory of three.2 million folks, 44% of whom reside beneath the poverty line.
“What occurred with this hurricane is that regardless that it was Class 1, by way of water it was like Class 4,” Puerto Rico’s governor, Pedro Pierluisi, instructed Biden.
Energy has been restored to about 90% of the island’s 1.47 million prospects, however greater than 137,000 others, largely within the hardest hit areas of Puerto Rico’s southern and western areas, proceed to battle at nighttime. One other 66,000 prospects are with out water.
The climate remained ominous as Biden spoke. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed within the distance.
“I don’t need the headline to learn, ‘Biden brings storm to Puerto Rico,’” he joked. “So I’m gonna perhaps have to chop this a bit quick.”
Biden has pledged that the U.S. authorities won't abandon Puerto Rico because it begins to rebuild once more, 5 years after the extra highly effective Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017.
Whereas leaving the White Home on Monday morning, the president mentioned he was going partly as a result of folks there “haven’t been taken superb care of,” and so they have been “attempting like hell to catch up from the final hurricane.”
Biden introduced the administration will present $60 million via final yr’s bipartisan infrastructure legislation to assist Puerto Rico shore up levees, strengthen flood partitions and create a brand new flood warning system so the island will likely be higher ready for future storms.
Florida is cleansing up after Hurricane Ian churned throughout that state final week, killing greater than 60 folks, decimating some coastal communities and flooding others. Biden plans to go to Florida on Wednesday to survey harm.
“At occasions like these, our nation comes collectively, places apart our political variations and will get to work,” Biden mentioned.
On Monday in Puerto Rico, the president was accompanied by first woman Jill Biden and Deanne Criswell, the Federal Emergency Administration Company administrator. They touched down in Ponce, a metropolis on the southern coast, the place many of the storm harm is.
“He’s going to the toughest hit space of Puerto Rico, and it’s an space the place presidents haven't gone to earlier than,” White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre instructed reporters aboard Air Power One.
Fiona induced catastrophic flooding, tore aside roads and bridges, and unleashed greater than 100 landslides when it hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 18. At the very least two folks died after being swept away by floods, and several other others have been killed in accidents associated to the usage of candles or generator through the island-wide energy outage.
Authorities officers have estimated some $3 billion in damages, however warn that prices may rise considerably as evaluations proceed.
Some folks in Puerto Rico questioned whether or not Biden’s go to would change something as they recalled how President Donald Trump visited after Hurricane Maria hit as a extra highly effective Class 4 storm in 2017, and tossed rolls of paper towels right into a crowd in a show that riled many.
“We all know that there could have been some points within the earlier administration,” Criswell mentioned Monday. “We're laser-focused on giving them the help they want.”
Criswell, who mentioned FEMA personnel have been despatched to the island earlier than the storm and can stay there to assist with restoration, visited Puerto Rico shortly after Fiona struck.
“They lastly really feel like this administration cares for them, and that they’re going to be there for them to help them via this response and restoration effort,” she mentioned.
There’s entrenched skepticism in some areas of the island that something will change.
Manuel Veguilla, a 63-year-old retired mechanic who lives in a distant group within the hard-hit northern mountain city of Caguas, mentioned he didn’t anticipate his life to enhance within the aftermath of Fiona, which reduce off his neighborhood from any assist for every week.
“They at all times supply the lollipop to the children,” he mentioned, referring to Biden’s go to. “However in the long run, the result is at all times the identical. The help goes to those that have probably the most.”
Biden lately instructed Pierluisi that he licensed 100% federal funding for a month for particles elimination, search and rescue efforts, energy and water restoration, shelter and meals.
The dearth of electrical energy on the island led to the non permanent closure of companies, together with fuel stations and grocery shops, as gas provides dwindled amid heavy generator use. In consequence, many cheered the Biden administration’s determination to briefly waive a federal legislation so that a British Petroleum ship may ship 300,000 barrels of diesel.
Many even have begun demanding that Puerto Rico be absolutely exempted from the legislation, referred to as the Jones Act, that requires that each one items transported to Puerto Rico be aboard a ship constructed within the U.S., owned and crewed by U.S. residents and flying the U.S. flag. This drives up prices for an island that already imports 85% of its meals.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., additionally mentioned Puerto Ricans wouldn't be forgotten.
Rubio mentioned the island gave the impression to be “in higher place to reply this time round” as a result of prepositioning of personnel and provides earlier than the storm hit and since a part of Puerto Rico’s electrical grid had been rebuilt after Hurricane Maria.
“We are going to do every thing we will, we at all times have, to help Puerto Rico now within the restoration after this, yet one more devastating storm,” Rubio mentioned on CNN’s “State of the Union.”