NEW ORLEANS – 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.
The president and his wife, Laura, spent Wednesday’s anniversary in New Orleans and Bay St. Louis, Miss., determined to celebrate those he said have “dedicated their lives to the renewal” of the region. But New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are still far from their former selves after two years.
“There’s still obstacles, and there’s still work to be done,” the president said. “But there’s been a lot of progress made, and that’s what people have got to understand.”
He said Mississippi had reopened virtually every public school and moved 31,000 families out of temporary housing into permanent homes.
It is the president’s 15th visit to the Gulf Coast since the massive hurricane obliterated coastal Mississippi when it roared onto land the morning of Aug. 29, 2005.
In fact, there is some good news from New Orleans. 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.