NEW ORLEANS — President Barack Obama, who accused the Bush administration of standing by “while a major American city drowns,” flew to New Orleans today to hear directly about its 4-year-long struggle to recover from Hurricane Katrina.
It was Obama’s first visit since he assumed the presidency from George W. Bush. He flew in to listen to city residents describe the hardships they’ve encountered since that harrowing time in the summer of 2005 when Katrina ravaged much of the Gulf Coast.
Some 1,600 people were killed in Louisiana and Mississippi — and damages have been estimated at roughly $40 billion. It’s a cost more starkly visible in the blighted neighborhoods of creaky houses, boarded-up businesses, structure after structure awaiting demolition and critical recovery work not yet commenced.
The storm was a natural disaster that also turned into a political one for Bush; the Federal Emergency Management Agency was widely criticized for a slow response, and local officials have complained that the Bush administration often stubbornly refused to pay for work that should have qualified for federal aid.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, has credited Obama’s team with bringing a more practical and flexible approach to the reconstruction process. “There’s a sense of momentum and a desire to get things done,” he said in August.
Some residents have criticized Obama for making such a brief visit — he was expected to be in and out of the city in just a few hours — and people in Mississippi, which took a direct hit from Katrina, were miffed that the president was skipping them.
Obama visited a school with his education secretary, Arne Duncan. Both men walked around the room and talked to students seated at 10 round tables. The president also was holding a town hall meeting. Afterward, he was heading west to San Francisco to help the Democratic Party raise money.
Obama also went outside and spoke to the rest of the school. He talked about growing up without a father and how hard he studied.
“I’m especially glad to come back here because I remember four years ago right after the storm, you know, a lot of people felt forgotten … You now see a school that is doing much better,” he said.
“I’m greatly disappointed he’s not coming to Mississippi,” said Tommy Longo, mayor of Waveland, Miss., where almost every standing structure was destroyed or damaged. “There was no city hit harder than Waveland.”
The White House said Obama is committed to Mississippi’s recovery as well.
Deputy press secretary Bill Burton said Obama had seen the damage on past visits. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Louisiana, Burton said that Obama had sent more Cabinet secretaries and other administration officials to the Gulf Coast region than virtually any other corner of the country. Burton also said the administration has freed up billions of dollars in aid for the region and has helped cut red tape.
With today’s visit, “the president is here to listen.”
He might be in for an earful.
Even before Air Force One touched down, people who won tickets in an Internet lottery for a town hall where Obama would answer their questions lined up by the hundreds outside the 1,500-seat University of New Orleans fitness center.
About 100 demonstrators were nearby. Some protested Obama’s health care proposals; others chanted support for him.
“I’m a small business owner and the things he has proposed are going to collapse my business,” said Tom Clement, 62, who came from Baton Rouge, where he runs a landscape contracting business with five employees.
Audrey Royal, 50, who brought her 11-year-old granddaughter to the event, said it’s too early to evaluate the Obama administration’s efforts.
“Nothing happens in nine months. I really don’t blame anybody,” said Royal. She said she and her husband lived in a FEMA trailer until April of this year while rebuilding their home. She said repairs cost more than $100,000 but that a federal-state hurricane rebuilding program only provided $55,000. They had no insurance to make up the difference, Royal said.
“It takes a lot of people to make it happen. It’s just time, money and patience,” she added.
When Obama became president, FEMA said more than 120 Louisiana reconstruction projects were stalled in federal-state disputes. Since January, 76 of those have been resolved. But there’s still much work remaining.
While it’s Obama’s first trip to New Orleans, it’s the administration’s 18th trip to the city. Administration officials also have made 35 trips to the Gulf Coast since March.
By the time Obama took office, the federal government had committed more than $126 billion to rebuilding Gulf Coast communities affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. In the past nine months, the administration says more than $1.4 billion in additional federal aid has gone toward repairing and rebuilding Louisiana and $160 million more to Mississippi.
But the impact from Katrina is still visible in places like New Orleans. Across from a school Obama planned to visit, firefighters work out of a trailer and a storm-shuttered community center awaits demolition.
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