WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden on Monday will survey damage from Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico, where tens of thousands of people are still without power two weeks after the storm hit.The Category 1 hurricane knocked out electrical power to the U.S.
territory of 3.2 million people, 44% of whom live below the poverty line.RELATED: President Biden, first lady to visit Florida and Puerto Rico to assess hurricane damagePower has been restored to about 90% of the island’s 1.47 million customers, but more than 137,000 others, mostly in the hardest hit areas of Puerto Rico’s southern and western regions, continue to struggle in the dark.
Another 66,000 customers are without water.Doris Romero (right) comforts her neighbor Leida Rodriguez, whose house collapsed into a sink hole after flooding from the Nigua River during Hurricane Fiona at Villa Esperanza in Salinas, Puerto Rico, on Friday, Sept.
23, 2022. (Pedro Portal/El Nuev Biden has pledged that the U.S. government will not abandon Puerto Rico as it starts to rebuild again, five years after the more powerful Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017.During his visit, Biden planned to announce the administration will provide $60 million through last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law to help Puerto Rico shore up levees, strengthen flood walls and create a new flood warning system, so the island will be better prepared for future storms, the White House said."We see what you’re going through, and we’re with you," Biden told Puerto Ricans and Floridians in a message Sunday on his official Twitter account.Florida is cleaning up after Hurricane Ian churned across that state last week, killing more than 60 people, decimating some coastal communities and flooding others..