Obama makes first trip to New Orleans as president

NEW ORLEANS — President Barack Obama, who accused the Bush administration of standing by “while a major American city drowns,” flew to New Orleans Thursday 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.

Accompanied by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Obama visited a school and said he thought it was “doing much better.” At the same time, people who won tickets in an Internet lottery for his town hall meeting lined up by the hundreds outside the 1,500-seat University of New Orleans fitness center. Roughly 150 demonstrators protested nearby, some criticizing his health care plan.

“I’m a small business owner and the things he has proposed are going to collapse my business,” said Tom Clement, 63, who came from Baton Rouge, where he runs a landscape contracting business with five employees.

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 for a party fundraising trip to San Francisco. People in Mississippi, which took a direct hit from Katrina, were miffed that the president was skipping them.

“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 has 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 and helped cut red tape.

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.

The impact from Katrina is still very graphic in places like New Orleans, however. Across from the school Obama visited, firefighters worked from a trailer and a storm-shuttered community center awaited demolition.

Associated Press writers Becky Bohrer and Mike Kunzelman in New Orleans contributed to this report.