‘We are all in this together’: Biden tells Puerto Ricans they’re not alone after Fiona

President Joe Biden on Thursday announced the federal government will be fully funding a month-long recovery effort in Puerto Rico — including power and water restoration costs — following the widespread destruction left behind by Hurricane Fiona.

Biden made the announcement in New York during a virtual briefing with officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the government of the U.S. territory. He added that the 100% federally-funded recovery efforts will also cover the expenditures of search and rescue operations, food, shelter and debris removal.

“We are all in this together,” Biden said.

FEMA also announced earlier Thursday that residents in 55 of Puerto Rico’s 78 towns will be able to apply for federal assistance that can include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-interest loans to cover uninsured property losses and other programs to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster. But some of the hardest hit areas in the west and southwest of Puerto Rico — including Cabo Rojo where Hurricane Fiona made landfall Sunday — were not initially included for individual federal aid.

This decision took some Puerto Ricans by surprise.

“If the damage and rainfall in San Juan on the opposite side of the island was enough to qualify for individual assistance, then by definition the damage and rainfall in Cabo Rojo and Lajas must be too,” Twitter user Diane Marie wrote. “Absolutely no rational basis for this.”

“What about Cabo Rojo, Lajas, and San Germán?” Facebook user Dixie Lee wrote. “Wasn’t it through Cabo Rojo that the hurricane entered and exited? What is truly the priority?”

And Blanca Iris Rodríguez echoed similar sentiments via Facebook: “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she told the governor in Spanish. The west, southwest and northwest towns should have been the first ones on that list.”

READ MORE: ‘Quick response’: How a Puerto Rican town looked after its own after Hurricane Fiona

Puerto Rican officials told reporters Thursday during a daily press conference that FEMA and local officials will work together to inspect the damages in the western and southwestern municipalities with hopes to include them in FEMA’s Individual Assistance Program. After Biden’s brief, Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said Thursday afternoon on Facebook that the western municipalities of Mayagüez, Hormigueros and Añasco will be included in the program.

READ MORE: Do you want to help the people affected by Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico? Here’s how

“An agile and effective recovery for all of those affected by Hurricane Fiona is top priority,” Pierluisi added. “I had a very productive meeting with President Joe Biden and his entire disaster recovery team where he and Deanne Criswell confirmed the inclusion of Mayagüez, Añasco, and Hormigueros in the Major Disaster Declaration, as well as the approval of 100% cost share of emergency within the first 30 days of the event.”

Significant flooding impacted the western and southwestern towns of Cabo Rojo, Mayagüez and Hormigueros, among others, where five to 16 inches of rain were estimated to have fallen from Friday afternoon to Monday morning, according to the National Weather Service in San Juan. Despite other areas in the central-east and south receiving over 30 inches, the island’s southern and southwestern towns received a lot of rain in a shorter span.

“It’s not the same to receive one inch of rain in one hour than one inch in five,” weather service meteorologist Carlos Anselmi-Molina told the Miami Herald on Thursday.

Many of these municipalities have been without power for at least four days, and on Thursday the weather service issued heat advisories and warnings for most coastal towns. NASA satellite photos from earlier in the day show that large swaths of Puerto Rico’s western and southern coasts are still in the dark, said Miguel O. Román, Chief Climate Scientist at Leidos and NASA’s Science Team leader for the MODIS and VIIRS instruments. Only 38% of 1.5 million customers had power service as of Thursday morning, up from 27% on Wednesday, according to the Puerto Rican government. But private power utility operator LUMA Energy said in a Facebook post that only 32% had power. And roughly 73% customers had running water while 358,947, or about 27.03%, did not as of Thursday afternoon.

Only 89 of Puerto Rico’s 827 schools were scheduled to restart classes Thursday, mainly due to the lack of power and running water.