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Biden Will Visit Puerto Rico to Survey Storm Damage Biden Says Puerto Rico Will Get ‘Every Single Dollar Promised’ for Recovery
(about 7 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Biden will travel to Puerto Rico on Monday and announce $60 million in funding to help the storm-damaged territory repair levees, mend storm walls and create a flood warning system to prepare for future storms. WASHINGTON — President Biden traveled to Puerto Rico on Monday, promising $60 million in hurricane relief funds and “every bit of help” from the federal government to help the storm-battered territory rebuild faster than in the past.
“I’m heading to Puerto Rico because they haven’t been taken very good care of,” Mr. Biden told reporters as he left the White House. “They’ve been trying like hell to catch up from the last hurricane. I want to see the state of affairs today and make sure we push everything we can.” Mr. Biden and Jill Biden, the first lady, visited Ponce, a city on Puerto Rico’s southern coast that was hit by Hurricane Fiona two weeks earlier — five years after Hurricane Maria, a strong Category 4 storm, decimated the island.
The president and Jill Biden, the first lady, will visit Ponce, a city on Puerto Rico’s southern coast. It will be the first of two trips they will make this week to survey the damage from Hurricane Fiona, which caused widespread flooding and power outages throughout Puerto Rico, and Hurricane Ian, which decimated parts of southwest and Central Florida. “For everyone who survived Maria, Fiona must have been an all-too-familiar nightmare,” Mr. Biden told a crowd, noting that he was speaking quickly to beat the ominous-looking storm clouds forming overhead. “You know better than anyone that over time these losses add up.”
The Bidens will visit the Fort Myers area in Florida on Wednesday, according to a person who was familiar with the president’s plans but was not authorized to publicly describe them. The trip to Puerto Rico was one of two the Bidens will take this week to survey storm damage. They will visit the Fort Myers area in Florida on Wednesday, according to a person who was familiar with the president’s plans but was not authorized to describe them publicly. The area was hit last week by Hurricane Ian, a Category 4 storm that devastated parts of southwest and central Florida and has left more than 80 people dead.
On Monday, nearly two weeks after Hurricane Fiona made landfall, utility companies in Puerto Rico were still working to restore power to thousands of customers. Ahead of Mr. Biden’s arrival in Puerto Rico, the White House announced that the territory would receive $60 million to help coastal areas prepare for future storms, and pointed out that the administration had removed many of the restrictions on federal aid that Mr. Biden’s predecessor, Donald J. Trump, put into place during his presidency.
The Bidens will meet with families whose homes were damaged by the storm, assemble care packages and gather with community leaders and emergency medical workers, according to a summary of the trip distributed by the White House. Deanne Criswell, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will join the Bidens on the trip. “We’re going to make sure you get every single dollar promised,” Mr. Biden said. “That’s why I approved emergency declarations in Puerto Rico before the hurricane.”
The funding for Puerto Rico will come from the bipartisan infrastructure law that passed this year. The Biden administration pointed out that it had reversed a Trump administration policy that blocked access to additional funding. On Sept. 20, the Biden administration announced a surge of Federal Emergency Management Agency resources to Puerto Rico, including search-and-rescue teams and incident management teams. Deanne Criswell, the administrator for FEMA, also traveled there to assess the damage.
Former President Donald J. Trump had a long-running — and often one-sided — feud with the island, beginning in 2017, when he appeared in San Juan and tossed rolls of paper towels at people whose homes and livelihoods had been destroyed by Hurricane Maria. The approach was meant to be markedly different from the one taken by Mr. Trump, who was accused of slow-walking aid to the island after Maria hit. Mr. Trump had a long-running — and often one-sided — feud with the Puerto Rico, beginning in 2017, when he appeared in San Juan and tossed rolls of paper towels at people whose homes and livelihoods had been destroyed by Hurricane Maria. (On Monday, Mr. Biden briefly posed for a photograph inside a school gymnasium as Dr. Biden filled plastic bags filled with groceries and supplies.)
In 2018, Mr. Trump suggested that the death toll from Hurricanes Irma and Maria had been inflated “to make me look as bad as possible.” He continued to lash out at the island throughout his presidency. In 2018, Mr. Trump suggested that the death toll from Hurricanes Irma and Maria had been inflated “to make me look as bad as possible.” He continued to lash out at Puerto Rico throughout his presidency, and one point mused to aides about trading it to Denmark in his long-running gambit to buy the country of Greenland.
The Biden administration has said it is committed to undoing the damage from the Trump era and helping Puerto Rico rebuild. But the island, which was severely damaged by Irma and Maria before Fiona hit, has struggled to restore infrastructure, including medical centers and hospitals. An examination of FEMA data shows that projects in Puerto Rico are backlogged compared with projects in Texas and Florida. With his visit to Ponce, Mr. Biden seemed determined to underscore that his administration would be a partner in rebuilding efforts: He told reporters before leaving the White House that he was visiting Puerto Rico because “they haven’t been taken very good care of.”
“They’ve been trying like hell to catch up from the last hurricane,” he said. “I want to see the state of affairs today and make sure we push everything we can.”
The funding for Puerto Rico that Mr. Biden announced will come from the bipartisan infrastructure law that passed last fall. But it is only a fraction of what the territory has said it needs to rebuild from Fiona and other serious storms.
Puerto Rico has struggled to rebuild housing and crucial infrastructure in the five years since it was hit by Maria and Irma, another powerful hurricane, in September 2017. Maria destroyed the entire power grid, wiped out cellular towers, and ultimately left 2,975 people dead, according to the Puerto Rican government.
Congress allocated some $64 billion for disaster relief from those storms, but only about a quarter of that amount has been spent, in part because of the slow pace of payments and the time it takes to complete rebuilding projects, according to a 2021 report by the Center for a New Economy, a nonpartisan think tank in Puerto Rico.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday, Ms. Criswell said that the agency had authorized $9.5 billion for Puerto Rico to restore its fragile power grid after Maria, but added that she did not have an additional estimate for damages caused by Fiona. Still, she said, on a recent trip she noticed that entire roads had been washed away and water distribution lines had been “completely damaged” from Fiona, leaving rural communities at risk.
“They were very mountainous communities, hard to access,” she said. “It’s going to be in the billions.”
Officials in Puerto Rico have pleaded with the federal government for help with restoring infrastructure lost by the storms and have expressed particular concern with shoring up the island’s power grid. A Times examination of FEMA data in 2019 showed that projects in Puerto Rico are backlogged compared with projects in Texas and Florida.
Pedro R. Pierluisi, the governor of Puerto Rico, spoke before Mr. Biden and said that he had asked the president to prioritize rebuilding much of the transportation infrastructure affected by Fiona.
“In short, my asks to you, Mr. President, are straightforward,” Mr. Pierluisi said. “We want to be treated in the same way as our fellow Americans in times of need. All American citizens, regardless of where they live in the United States, should receive the same support from the federal government.”
Mr. Pierluisi said that Puerto Rico was “in full recovery mode”: More than 800,000 Puerto Rican residents have registered with FEMA to request individual assistance. He added that he had provided Mr. Biden with a “detailed briefing” of recovery and reconstruction efforts after Fiona, as well as requests for what was still needed.
In 2020, the Trump administration placed severe restrictions on billions of dollars in relief funding to Puerto Rico, citing concerns over political corruption. For Puerto Rico to gain access to $8.2 billion in recovery money and $8.3 billion in disaster prevention funds, the Trump administration declared that it would have to submit budget plans to its federally mandated fiscal control board, which would track where the money went. The announcement came amid protests in Puerto Rico accusing public officials of mishandling relief funds and supplies.
The Biden administration began removing those restrictions in 2021.
Eileen Sullivan contributed reporting.