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Hurricane Katrina

Bush hails New Orleans' strides

In a visit to the ravaged Gulf Coast, the president calls the progress "dramatic," but says much more remains to be done.

By wire services
Published January 13, 2006

NEW ORLEANS - After a three-month absence from the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast, President Bush offered a fresh commitment to the region's long, expensive rebuilding and spoke optimistically about progress in a New Orleans still wrangling over proposals for bringing back the still-ruined city.

Bush dropped in on two of the areas hardest-hit when Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore Aug. 29 - New Orleans, the majority of which was flooded after levees failed, and Bay St. Louis on the Mississippi coast, most of it shattered by the punishing winds.

The president referred to the many daunting problems that remain - a lack of housing in New Orleans, the slow pace of Small Business Administration loans, problems with insurance payments, the urgent need for bridge rebuilding.

"People in faraway places like Washington, D.C., still hear you and care about you," he said in the gymnasium at St. Stanislaus College in Bay St. Louis. "I recognize there's some rough spots. . . . We're going to work to make them as smooth as possible."

The White House said the federal government's costs for rebuilding are driving up the deficit for this year. Joel Kaplan, deputy budget director, said the administration expected the deficit for this year to top $400-billion, a $60-billion increase from estimates made the month before Katrina hit.

Bush promised Gulf Coast residents that his administration is learning the lessons of its much-criticized response to Katrina. "We want to know how to make it better," he said. "I just want to assure you, we are, we are."

In New Orleans, especially, the president played booster-in-chief. Before a colorful mural of jazz musicians, a riverboat, masked Mardi Gras revelers and crawfish, he suggested it as a great place for a convention and as an attractive tourist destination with "some of the greatest food in the world and some wonderful fun."

Bush praised the city's success in getting services like electricity and water mostly on line, said new federal tax incentives will encourage businesses to create jobs and insisted stronger promised levee protection will make the city both safer and more attractive for investment. All those things, he said, will help turn New Orleans back into a "shining part of the South."

"I will tell you, the contrast between when I was last here and today is pretty dramatic," Bush said before meeting privately with local government officials and small business owners.

Even with that progress, many of New Orleans' neighborhoods remain wastelands of uninhabitable homes and sidewalks piled with moldy garbage. Barely a quarter of the city's former population of nearly 500,000 has returned, and it's not clear how many more will.

Though the president's motorcade route wound past some previously underwater areas and a smattering of damaged buildings, his meeting was held in a visitor's center in the Lower Garden District neighborhood that never suffered serious damage.

In Bay St. Louis, Bush drove past thousands of snapped trees, debris still hanging from limbs and lots emptied of their buildings. There are almost no intact structures - concrete foundations are virtually all that is left on most lots - and little evidence of new construction.

The president emphasized progress.

"We've come a long way in four months," he said across the street from enormous piles of broken lumber. "And a lot more is going to happen in the next four months and the next four months."

Bush made eight trips to the Gulf Coast in the six weeks after Katrina hit. Thursday's trip was intended to signal that Katrina recovery ranks among his priorities for 2006.

The president ended the day in Florida, headlining a Republican fundraiser in Palm Beach that raised $4-million.

NEW ORLEANS - As President Bush returned to the city for the first time in three months, teenage protesters donned life jackets, goggles and inner tubes Thursday to symbolize their flooded homes and protest what they said was New Orleans' lack of defense against future storms.

Chanting cheerleader-style slogans, the girls, ages 13 to 18, held up signs warning that if levees are not fixed and the Gulf Coast's wetlands not restored, the city could flood again as it did after Hurricane Katrina.

The event, which drew an estimated 300 protesters and spectators, coincided with Bush's ninth visit to the city since the storm.

"I think the city will disappear if the levees aren't fixed," said Maddy Jennings, 15, a freshman at the Academy of the Sacred Heart, an all-girls Catholic school that took the morning off to allow its 200-plus students to attend the rally at historic Jackson Square.

The president signed a spending bill last month that included $2.9-billion to repair and restore failed levees and speed work on hurricane protection around New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS - Four-and-a-half months ago, the Hurricane Katrina evacuation canceled Tulane University's freshman orientation after just a few hours.

On Thursday, the school finally came back to life.

Students moved in on a day called "Orientation Deja Vu," with familiar scenes more typical of late summer - parents carrying trunks and freshmen getting acquainted with neighbors and roommates. And at Tulane's convocation, audience members stood and applauded as university president Scott Cowen - who came to the same podium in Bermuda shorts in August to announce the evacuation - followed a New Orleans jazz band down the aisle and, in full academic regalia, at last delivered his welcome address.

"We are the only large institution that is currently standing in New Orleans right now," Cowen said.

Information from the New York Times and Associated Press was used in this report.

[Last modified January 13, 2006, 01:47:08]