President Joe Biden promised on the island of Puerto Rico that recovery aid will arrive without delay with the aim of rebuilding the island “faster” and “in a resilient way” in the face of the passage of new hurricanes.
His first visit to Puerto Rico as the leader of the White House, which only lasted three hours, was focused on examining the damage caused by Hurricane Fiona and showing his “ commitment” with the island, which feels that it does not receive the necessary support from the United States or that it is late.
“We came in person to show that we are with you, all Americans are with you, while they recover and rebuild”, Biden stressed to calm the fears of this Commonwealth of the United States.
After the passage of Hurricane Maria in the year 2017, which left the least 3, 000 dead and total devastation, funds were approved federal millionaires for the reconstruction of the island, but these were delayed about three years, with which the projects are advanced in less than a 25%.
Puerto Rico will receive “every dollar” promised
“We will make sure you get every promised dollar. I am determined to help Puerto Rico build faster than in the past and stronger and better prepared for the future”, he stated in his speech at the port of Ponce.
The US president stated that the reconstruction must be total and “in a resilient way” with the aim that “when another storm comes, it will come, we will not have the damage that has been caused before”.
For this, it officially announced more than 60 millions of dollars in funds to secure levees, strengthen walls and create a warning system to mitigate flooding in case of hurricanes.
Biden cited as priorities the reconstruction of infrastructure, such as roads and ports, and the modernization of the electrical network, whose fragility was again evident with Fiona when a general blackout occurred on the island.
Fiona caused the death of at least 25 people, mostly indirectly a, and damage classified by the authorities as catastrophic, which led Biden to declare a state of major disaster.
“The people of Puerto Rico continue to rise up with resilience and determination. They deserve all the help their country can give them,” said Biden, the seventh US president to visit the island on an official trip.
The Democratic president was accompanied by the first lady , Jill Biden; the Governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Pierluisi; the mayor of Ponce, Luis Irizarry; the Resident Commissioner in Washington, Jenniffer González, and Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, among others.
He was briefly informed of the island’s reconstruction process and visited the Centro Sor Isolina Ferré Aguayo school, where he met with families and community leaders affected by the hurricane.
The executive director of the Puerto Rico Office of Recovery, Reconstruction and Resilience (COR3), Manuel Laboy, told Efe in Ponce that he was “pleased” with the result of the visit because Biden “committed to Puerto Rico”.
Laboy explained that Biden was asked that, after Fiona, “we should not spend years but weeks visiting the impacted projects to get them up and running immediately”, as well as review the fixed cost estimates because this last hurricane “changed the game”.
A real change in the face of Trump’s rudeness
Yes during his speech Biden acknowledged that aid in the past If they have not arrived on time, before arriving on the island, he told reporters that Puerto Ricans “have not been very well taken care of” before.
His predecessor in the White House, Republican Donald Trump, carried out numerous insults to Puerto Rico, including during his visit to the island in October of 2017, after Hurricane Maria.
On Puerto Rican soil , assured that the disaster caused by Maria was not “a real catastrophe”, as Katrina was in 2005, and threw rolls of toilet paper at the assembled citizens, causing great unrest on the island.
Since then, Puerto Rico’s slow recovery has also been affected by the earthquakes of 2020, which especially impacted Ponce, and now Hurricane Fiona.
In this sense, Pierluisi highlighted in his speech at the port of Ponce the “firm support” of the Biden Administration, which has been demonstrated -he added- with “concrete actions”.
Pierluisi also requested that it be increased from 30 a 180 days the emergency period in which the repairs are paid at 100% by the federal government.
A sign of the support of the Biden-Harris administration is that last February 1 was released,2005 millions of dollars so that Puerto Rico can protect itself against future climatic disasters.
Despite this and coinciding with the visit, which for many Puerto Ricans was too short, there have been more claims to improve the island, such as increasing funds for the battered health sector.
Some also took the opportunity to request “statehood”, that is, the annexation of the island to the US, one of the options stipulated in a project referendum that still needs to be approved by the federal Chamber.
With information from EFE
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