An Angry New Orleans Remembers Katrina
On the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, anger over the stalled rebuilding was palpable throughout a city where the mourning for the dead and feeling of loss for flooded homes, schools, snow cone stands, old-time hairstylists and hardware stores doesn't seem to subside.
Hurricane Katrina made landfall south of New Orleans at 6:10 a.m. Aug. 29, 2005, as a strong Category 3 hurricane that flooded 80 percent of the city and killed more than 1,600 people in Louisiana and Mississippi. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.
President Bush commemorated Hurricane Katrina's devastating blow Wednesday with a somber moment of silence. Across town, in a symbol of a federal-city divide that persists two years after the killer storm, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin marked the levee-breach moment with bell-ringing.
Mr. Bush and his wife, Laura, are spending Wednesday's anniversary of the storm in New Orleans and Bay St. Louis, Miss., determined to celebrate those he says have "dedicated their lives to the renewal of New Orleans." But with the region far from its former self after two years, some here think it's the president's dedication that should be in the spotlight.
"This town is coming back. This town is better today than it was yesterday and it will be better tomorrow than it is today," Mr. Bush said Wednesday during a visit to the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School for Science and Technology.
However, Mr. Bush cautioned, "We fully understand New Orleans can't be rebuilt until there is confidence in the levees."
The front page of The Times-Picayune advertised a scathing editorial above the masthead: "Treat us fairly, Mr. President." It chided the Bush administration for giving Republican-dominated Mississippi a share of federal money that it said was disproportionate to the lesser impact the storm had there than in largely Democratic Louisiana. "We ought to get no less help from our government than any other victims of this disaster," it said.
"There's always a more blessed day in the future and that's what we're here to celebrate," said Mr. Bush.CBS News Poll: Little Progress Seen Since Katrina
It is the president's 15th visit to the Gulf Coast since the massive hurricane.
The performance by the president and the federal government in the immediate aftermath of the storm - and some residents' lingering sense of abandonment since - severely dented Bush's image as a take-charge leader.
As on other visits, the president and his team arrived here armed with facts and figures to show how much the Bush administration has done to fulfill the promises the president made two-and-a-half weeks after the hurricane.
"We will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives," Mr. Bush said then from historic Jackson Square in New Orleans' French Quarter. "This great city will rise again."
In fact, there is some good news here. The city's population is rebounding, and a few neighborhoods thrive. New Orleans has recovered much of its economic base and sales tax revenues are approaching normal. The French Quarter survived Katrina, and the music and restaurant scenes are recovering.
But much of New Orleans still looks like a wasteland, with businesses shuttered and houses abandoned. Basic services like schools, libraries, public transportation and childcare are at half their original levels and only two-thirds of the region's licensed hospitals are open. Rental properties are in severely short supply, driving rents for those that are available way up. Crime is rampant and police operate out of trailers.
At Charity Hospital, a 21-story limestone hospital adorned with allegorical reliefs, public officials will attend a somber groundbreaking for a victims' memorial and mausoleum that will house the remains of more than 100 victims who have still not been identified.
"It's an emotional time. You re-live what happened and you remember how scattered everyone is now. There are relationships now that are completely over," said Robert Smallwood, a New Orleans writer. "The city has been dying this slow death. In New Orleans, you can't escape it. It's bad news everyday."
Along Mississippi's 70-mile shoreline, harsh economic realities also are hampering rebuilding.
Many projects are hamstrung by the soaring costs of construction and insurance, while federal funding has been slow to flow to cities. Other economic indicators are down - such as population, employment and housing supplies.
Mr. Bush's Gulf Coast rebuilding chief, Don Powell, noted the federal government has committed a total of $114 billion to the region, $96 billion of which is already disbursed or available to local governments. Most of it has been for disaster relief, not long-term recovery. He implied it is local officials' fault, particularly in Louisiana where the pace has been slower, if money has not reached citizens.
Powell also said the president intends to ask for the approximately $5 billion federal share of the $7.6 billion more needed to strengthen New Orleans' levee system to withstand a 100-year storm and improve the area's drainage system. Though the levees are not yet ready for the next massive storm, they are slated to be strengthened by 2015.
But Powell said other areas - such as infrastructure repair and home rebuilding - are shared responsibilities with local officials or entirely the purview of state and local governments, suggesting that the federal government is absolved when those things don't happen.
Locals don't appreciate the insinuations.
"The federal government still seems to place a higher priority on troop surges in Iraq than on storm surges in our part of the world," New Orleans resident Walter L. Bonam wrote in an op-ed in Wednesday's Times-Picayune.