Obama: New Orleans will be better than ever

NEW ORLEANS — President Barack Obama defended himself Thursday against critics in New Orleans and across the Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast who feel recovery help has not come soon enough from his administration.

Making his first stop as president in the region devastated by Hurricane Katrina over four years ago, Obama appeared at a town hall gathering to hear residents’ concerns in person. One man asked why federal damage reimbursements are coming to locals so slowly and in amounts far less than needed.

“I expected as much from the Bush administration, but why are we still being nickeled and dimed in our recovery,” the man asked Obama.

The president replied that his administration is “working as hard as we can, as quickly as we can.”

“I know since a lot of these problems have been going on since Katrina, people understandably feel impatient,” Obama said. “On the other hand, a lot of these things are not going to be fixed tomorrow.”

The president also claimed progress since he has been president, citing reconstruction projects that have moved forward after stalling due to disagreements over whether the state or federal government would foot the bill. And his administration has sent more than $1.4 billion in additional federal aid toward repairing and rebuilding Louisiana.

The town hall took place after Obama visited a local school that he said was doing much better than four years ago.

Still, in opening remarks before a boisterous crowd at the University of New Orleans, the president acknowledged residents’ frustration about the pace of recovery from the long-ago storm.

“It’s clear how far we have to go before we can call this recovery a success,” he said, noting sewers and roads that still need repair, houses and hospitals that are still vacant, and schools and neighborhoods waiting to thrive.

“I promise you this … we will not forget about New Orleans. We are going to keep on working. We will not forget about the Gulf Coast,” Obama said.

He has accused the Bush administration of standing by “while a major American city drowns.” He said Katrina was not just a natural disaster, but also a failure of government.

He promised better emergency preparation so that the kind of devastation wrought by the hurricane is never repeated. “We are committed to making sure that a disaster like Katrina does not happen again,” Obama said.

He announced a new working group to coordinate restoration projects across the Gulf Coast.