George W. Bush visits Katrina disaster zone

NEW ORLEANS – Former President George W. Bush enjoyed sympathetic audiences in New Orleans and Mississippi on Friday as he returned to the region where Hurricane Katrina sank his popularity 10 years ago.

Bush avoided parts of New Orleans that have yet to recover from the devastating storm, such as the Lower 9th Ward, where President Barack Obama mingled with hundreds of residents the day before. Bush did not tour the federally managed levees whose failures flooded 80 percent of the city.

Instead, he visited a school rebuilt with support from former first lady Laura Bush’s foundation, then flew to Gulfport, Mississippi, to honor police and firefighters who saved lives after Katrina’s towering storm surge swamped the coast.

“The 10th anniversary is a good time to honor courage and resolve,” Bush said in Gulfport. “It’s also a good time to remember we live in a compassionate nation.”

Bush took no questions at either event, and made no mention of his administration’s lackluster initial response to Katrina, which historians consider a low point for his presidency. In New Orleans, he focused instead on promoting charter schools.

The comeback from Katrina has been uneven. While Mississippi’s Gulf Coast recovered all its population and then some, Bush and his team have been so deeply resented in New Orleans that Carnival goers displayed them in effigy at annual Mardi Gras parades.

For days after the storm, bodies decomposed in the streets and thousands of people begged to be rescued from their rooftops in New Orleans. In Mississippi, relief came so slowly that Biloxi’s Sun Herald newspaper published a front-page editorial, entitled “Help Us Now.”

Bush didn’t help his image by initially flying over the flooded city in Air Force One without touching down, then saying “Heckuva job, Brownie” to praise his ill-prepared Federal Emergency Management Agency director, Michael Brown, who resigned shortly thereafter.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said Bush isn’t to blame for the disaster that ultimately killed more than 1,830 people. “I think he certainly did a tremendous amount of good. It was just a tremendous storm. No one was prepared,” Bryant said.

Bush’s administration eventually spent $140 billion on the recovery.