On Gulf tour, Bush hails a rebirth

BILOXI, Miss. -- A year after Hurricane Katrina devastated Mississippi and Louisiana, President Bush and Democratic leaders are converging on the Gulf Coast this week to commemorate the losses while continuing the political argument over the federal response to the country's largest domestic disaster.

Arriving yesterday in this seaside city in the first stop of a two-day visit that later took him to New Orleans, Bush paid homage to the grit of ordinary Mississippians for their efforts to rebuild their communities and promised that his administration will not neglect them as memories of the storm fade.

``One year doesn't mean that we'll forget," Bush said after lunching on fried shrimp and gumbo with community and state leaders at the small Biloxi Schooner restaurant. ``Now is the time to renew our commitment to let the people down here know that we will stay involved and help the people of Mississippi rebuild their lives."

In returning to scenes of one of his administration's biggest political embarrassments, Bush visited a city that remains a shell of its former self. Much of the debris has been removed and casinos are starting to sprout along Biloxi's waterfront, but empty lots abound, thousands of displaced persons continue to live in trailers, and federal money is only beginning to trickle down to individuals and businesses, according to local leaders.

Democratic lawmakers and liberal advocacy groups flocked to the Gulf Coast in Bush's wake to offer their own, vastly more critical, assessments of how well Bush and the federal government have performed in rebuilding communities swamped by Katrina.

In an interview, Senator Mary Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, said the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast is going ``not very well," and asserted that federal agencies like FEMA and the Small Business Administration are botching the delivery of federal funds to individuals and small enterprises. ``Yes, the recovery is under way," she said. ``It is still painfully slow. We have unnecessarily lost so much because the system is overburdened."

Landrieu has been joined by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, for parts of what she has termed a ``Hope and Recovery" tour for the region. Inspecting damaged sections of New Orleans along with other lawmakers yesterday, another prominent Democrat, Representative James Clyburn, of South Carolina, predicted Americans will be ``very surprised to know this recovery is way, way behind what their expectations would have been."

The administration's halting initial response to Katrina, especially in Louisiana, was a political debacle which even some Bush supporters believe still burdens the White House. Mindful of the symbolism of the one-year hurricane anniversary, White House aides have been distributing fact sheets and statistics suggesting progress, including the more than $110 billion of federal money that has been set aside by Congress for Gulf Coast assistance and reconstruction.

Less than half of that has been actually spent, however, and local officials in Mississippi and Louisiana have been complaining about red tape slowing the flow of funds for housing and small business. Tommy Longo, the mayor of Waveland, another hardhit town on the Gulf Coast, said he does not blame Bush for the delay and said he was unsure who is at fault.

``I don't think the money is held up in Washington -- it is held up somewhere in between," said Longo, as he awaited Bush's appearance here in Biloxi.

Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, who accompanied Bush on his visit to Biloxi, said it was a combination of factors that have caused the government to stall. ``Part of it is federal bureaucracy," he said. ``Part of it is state bureaucracy."

The carefully-scripted White House visit to Mississippi left little possibility of Bush encountering much anger over the federal reconstruction efforts. After meeting with Republican Governor Haley Barbour and other leaders for lunch, Bush toured a working class East Biloxi neighborhood that he visited a year ago, passing empty lots and FEMA trailers along the way. The hot sun left his blue shirt sleeves soaked in sweat.

Some of the same people he met then were in a friendly audience of several dozen local residents who heard from Bush after he finished his tour yesterday, a few clutching pictures of themselves being consoled by Bush in the aftermath of the storm last September. One of them was Patrick Wright, 38, a delivery driver for FedEx whose house was destroyed by the storm and who is now living in a FEMA trailer.

Wright expressed satisfaction with Bush's efforts on behalf of Mississippi, saying that while he was still waiting for federal housing money to begin rebuilding his nearby house, he felt the government was moving as fast as possible. ``Some people say it was slow, but for the number of people affected, you expect it to be slow," said Wright.

In his remarks to Wright and his neighbors, Bush acknowledged ``some frustration" among homeowners but said the government is ``working hard to make sure that when that money is spent, it's spent well, and it goes to people who deserve it."

Later, speaking to reporters after visiting a shipbuilding enterprise in Gulfport, Bush said it would take ``years, not months" for the area to be fully rebuilt, although he did not mention a specific time frame. ``The progress in one year's time has been remarkable," Bush said.

In Mississippi, the cleanup from Katrina has been judged to have been somewhat quicker than in neighboring Louisiana, though there remains a huge reconstruction task.