Bush Urges N.O. Residents To Return

(CBS/AP)  President Bush comforted this city that lost so much in Hurricane Katrina and has regained so little in the year since. Amid the raw sorrow of Tuesday's anniversary, the president selected a few beacons of hope to give a lift to struggling Gulf communities and his own still-smarting presidency.

He scarfed hot cakes with happy patrons at Betsy's Pancake House, a reopened hangout in a downtrodden, flood-stained New Orleans neighborhood. He chose as a speech backdrop a new charter school viewed as a sign of the city's commitment to a better post-Katrina educational system.

He called on rhythm and blues legend and local favorite son Fats Domino, who is restoring his destroyed Ninth Ward home, and replaced the National Medal of Arts that got washed away with everything else. He visited a Habitat for Humanity project nearby that is building dozens of homes for displaced local musicians.

He even met the New Orleans Saints, whose return to the Superdome next month is cheered here as a symbol of normalcy in the very place that 30,000 storm victims grew increasingly desperate in the days after Katrina's strike.

"The challenge is not only to help rebuild, but the challenge is to help restore the soul," Mr. Bush said in a speech heavily laced with religious references. "Sunday has not yet come to New Orleans, but you can see it ahead."

CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller (audio) reports Mr. Bush listened as Archbishop Alfred Hughes tried to answer those who ask if the storm was the will of God.

"We ask not why has God allowed this disaster, but how does God want us to respond to it," Hughes said.

Outside the cathedral, bells tolled, reports CBS News correspondent Cami McCormick (audio), and Mayor Ray Nagin told the crowd the anniversary was a difficult day for everyone, including himself.

"Trust me. We will get through it. We will get through it together," he said.

When Katrina roared ashore east of New Orleans last Aug. 29, it left 80 percent of New Orleans underwater, killed 1,800 people across the Gulf Coast, destroyed or severely damaged more than 204,000 homes and made more than 800,000 people homeless overnight.

A year later, New Orleans and other hard-hit parts of southeastern Louisiana haven't even emerged entirely from the cleanup phase. With insurance settlements in dispute, no master rebuilding plan from the city, and federal grants only beginning to flow to residents, significant reconstruction efforts seem a distant hope for most. Less than half of New Orleans' population has returned.

But some residents are unsure their city will return to how it was. "I feel like I've been paralyzed for a year… I wanted to see what would happen and make peace with all this. It's almost like grieving for the loss of someone," Coleen Mooney, a Katrina survivor, told CBS News' Harry Smith.

"I know you love New Orleans," Mr. Bush said to residents scattered across the nation. "And New Orleans needs you. She needs people coming home. She needs people, she needs those saints to come marching back. That's what she needs."

Many of those who have elected to take on long-time financial hardship and start rebuilding, rather than waiting any longer for federal assistance, reports McCormick (audio). Terry Jackson, a Katrina survivor from New Orleans' Ninth Ward, told Smith he rebuilt his home almost entirely himself.

"Ain't nobody doin' nothing. They forgot about us. That's what I'd tell the president... The mayor, everybody. Y'all just forgot about us," Jackson told CBS News.

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[xenoprobe]

And that is exactly what should be happening here... Bush, FEMA... other large organizations that failed to get money and aid to those who need it - they should all be hung to dry in the hot and now mostly treeless Louisiana sun.

Bush's interview last night, while strolling the streets of the finest city on North American soil, sickened me so deeply that I was forced to turn off the television and vomit. Yes, George Bush makes me puke - literally. He's not the only one who is culpable, but anyone who thinks this *** should be re-elected after this disaster should seriously have their heads checked.

The poor, the over-looked... they need help and asking them to return home when there's nothing in place to help them is a ridiculous suggestion; one that should have never even been conceived without the back up and support of agencies and organizations to oversee people's safety and well-being.

[xenoprobe]

I find it interesting that George Bush is 'encouraging' folks to return home to New Orleans. I find it curiously bizzarre that he'd do this, publically, when he and his half-assed government have done the absolute minimum to ensure returning citizens are provided for.

A year after the hurricanes people are still living in trailers, are dispersed all over the country and are still not on their feet. It is a precious few who have returned and are up and running and in many of those instances, these are folks who had their own means to rebuild.

Whether you look at the footage of the immediate aftermath of Katrina's wake, or whether you look at the news and 'progress' that has been made in a year, the overwhelming evidence demonstrates that George Bush and his administration don't care about race relations and are so neglectful that if this was a one on one situation (one person being racially discriminatory towards another) he'd have been prosecuted by now.

[nynative1340]

Maybe Bush should move to New Orleans during the next hurricane that hits and he can get first-hand experience of what it's like to depend on an inept administration--his own.

[tomflint69]

Mr. Bush, I agree that you love your people who affected from Hurricane but it is the time for you to save U.S and rest of the world from the cruelty of Iranians, from their violent leader who is playing games. We hope you will soon do some thing good!

[mwhaley76]

I don't know about everyone else, but it seems to me that Bush always has some excuse for the poor response of our govenrment. The Katrina disaster affected everyone of us, be it directly or indirectly. As long as we keep supporting a president and government that doesn't support us, we'll always be in a state of disarray. To all the Katrina victims, GOD BLESS YOU! To President Bush, MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SOUL!!!

[spak50]

i do feel very sorry of the people that lost everything in Katrina, but what about all the people that lost everything in "RITA" less that a month later. FEMA did nothing but give them a amall amount of money, to help them rebuild there lives. and that is just wrong.

[phldml]

All this time we have been hearing that thw U.S.
Government needs to rebuild New Orleans but I have not heard what the Mayor has done.? Can someone educate me on how much he has done for the city?