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President Joe Biden on Monday pledged more than $60 million in aid to help U.S. territory Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Fiona and said more money was coming.
Soon after arriving with his wife, Jill Biden, the president met with victims of the hurricane, which left Puerto Rico without power for an extended period. Biden will travel to Florida on Wednesday to see damage from Hurricane Ian.
“We came here in person to show that we’re with you. All of America’s with you as you receive and recover and rebuild,” Biden said in Ponce, Puerto Rico. “Yes, Puerto Rico is a strong place and Puerto Ricans are a strong people, but even so you have had to bear so much, more than need be, and you haven’t gotten help in a timely way,” Biden said.
Though Biden said during his speech that “it’s times like these [natural disasters] our nation comes together, and put aside our political differences,” he used the opportunity to politicize his efforts, pouncing on Trump’s response to Hurricane Maria. Before leaving Washington D.C., Biden said that he was heading to Puerto Rico “because they haven’t been taken very good care of, and I’ve been trying like hell to catch up from the last hurricane.”
Biden said the $60 million would help rebuild coastal regions. He was joined by Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell.
The funding will help “shore up levees and flood walls, and create a new flood warning system to help residents better prepare for future storms,” Biden said in a Twitter post.
As an unincorporated territory of the United States, Puerto Rico is neither a U.S. state nor a sovereign nation.
In an apparent attempt to make himself more relatable to the Puerto Rican people, Biden claimed that “I was sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically.”
He also claimed that Puerto Rico, like his home state of Delaware, is under the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. Actually, Puerto Rico is part of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.
Video of Joe Biden saying he was raised in a Puerto Rican community “politically”
He then says Puerto Rico is under the jurisdiction of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals — It is not 🥴🤦🏽♂️ pic.twitter.com/csWbqUsYB5
— Andrew J. Padilla 🇵🇷 (@apadillafilm6) October 3, 2022
Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi, speaking before Biden, said: “We want to be treated in the same way as our fellow Americans in the states in times of need. All American citizens, regardless of where they live … should receive the same support from the federal government.”
Biden listed recent investments in Puerto Rico‘s roads, bridges, mangrove restoration and coral reefs included in recent funding bills from the U.S. Congress, and said more money was coming.
“I’m ready to deploy and expedite more resources from the Department in Energy and other federal agencies,” so that residents can get clean, reliable power, he said.
An estimated 109,000 homes and businesses were still without power in Puerto Rico on Tuesday, two weeks after the storm which initially caused an island-wide outage for its 3.3 million people.
The Biden administration is monitoring the impact of Hurricane Ian on the insurance industry, Criswell told reporters aboard Air Force One.
Electricity restored
Storm-ravaged residents in Florida and the Carolinas alone face a disaster recovery expected to cost tens of billions of dollars.
Hundreds of thousands of people have struggled without power since Fiona hit Puerto Rico some two weeks ago.
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Sunday said that power had been restored to 90% of customers on the island.
“This is an important milestone, coming just 13 days after Fiona made landfall,” she said. “While we’re grateful for this progress, we realize the work is not over. Efforts to rebuild and help those impacted will continue.”
Last week the Biden administration approved a waiver of U.S. shipping rules to address Puerto Rico‘s immediate energy needs.
Copyright 2022 Thomson/Reuters. Additions and edits for FISM News by Jacob Fuller.