Bush lauds ‘dramatic’ progress along Gulf

BAY ST. LOUIS, Miss. – Thousands remain homeless and destruction still dots the landscape, but President Bush on Thursday lauded “pretty dramatic” progress on the Gulf Coast since Hurricane Katrina wrought the biggest natural disaster in U.S. history and shook public confidence in his leadership.

In his first visit to the region in three months, Bush met with business owners and local officials in New Orleans, surveyed rebuilding efforts along the coast from a helicopter and addressed storm survivors and local officials in this devastated Mississippi beach community.

He offered no new programs or ideas, but sought to convince residents that billions in federal aid was already making a difference – and that billions more were on the way.

“It’s hard sometimes, unless you’ve got a perspective,” said Bush, who has visited the area nine times since Katrina struck Aug. 29. “I have the perspective of having spent some time here, but not all my time. And I can remember what was, and now what is, and I can see what’s going to be, too. And it’s going to be a better Gulf Coast of Mississippi.”

The president used similarly optimistic words during his brief stop in New Orleans, even encouraging tourists and conventioneers to visit the still-devastated city.

“From when I first came here to today, New Orleans is reminding me of the city I used to come to visit,” he said. “It’s a heck of a place to bring your family. It’s a great place to find some of the greatest food in the world and some wonderful fun. And I’m glad you got your infrastructure back on its feet.”

But Bush’s optimism was tempered by doses of reality. In Mississippi, he spoke in a high school gymnasium just a block from the beach, surrounded by collapsed homes, newly vacant lots and pile after pile of rubble.

And in New Orleans, Bush arrived in the midst of a local controversy over a new reconstruction proposal, which envisions a much smaller city in which the most severely damaged areas, which housed largely black residents, would have to justify the reasons for rebuilding them. Local politicians and residents have greeted the plan with outrage, decrying proposals to abandon some neighborhoods while spending billions on a rail link to Baton Rouge and the Mississippi coast.

The plan requires approval by local officials and the White House, but administration officials declined Thursday to take a firm position on it.

Meeting Thursday with several small-business owners, politicians and other community leaders, Bush hailed his administration’s commitment to spend $3.1 billion on rebuilding and strengthening the levees that are considered the linchpin to rebuilding New Orleans. Bush said repeatedly that the federal government had authorized $85 billion for rebuilding the Gulf Coast overall, and that $25 billion was already being spent.

But the White House has come under fire for failing to commit to building a far more expensive levee system that could guard against the strongest possible hurricane, a Category 5 storm. The new, stronger levees would protect against an estimated Category 2 or 3 storm.