New Orleans – President Bush got a taste of New Orleans’ finest Monday, dining in the French Quarter and staying at a luxury hotel to showcase progress in the hurricane-battered city even as much of it remains in ruins.
The historic French Quarter was mostly spared by the storm and is showing increasing signs of normalcy with lights back on and establishments re-opened.
Still, many of New Orleans’ stores and businesses remain closed, relatively few people are on the streets and many areas remain uninhabitable, even if mostly dry.
The president, accompanied by his wife, Laura, saw little of that, instead choosing to shine a spotlight on the improvements.
Over dinner at Ralph Brennan’s Bacco in the Quarter’s heart, Bush discussed the city’s rebuilding with New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin and some of the business owners, church leaders and others he has appointed to a Commission for the Future of New Orleans.
On his only other overnight in the city, Bush had to bunk on the USS Iwo Jima, which had been docked near downtown. This time, a month later, he was able to stay in a hotel, and he chose a luxury hotel, the Windsor Court.
Upon arrival, Bush also met with political leaders and law enforcement officials from Plaquemines Parish, a major seafood producer and home for oil refineries southeast of New Orleans that took a double hit from Katrina and then Hurricane Rita a month later.
It was Bush’s eighth visit to the storm zone and fifth to New Orleans since Katrina struck on Aug. 29.
He initially responded to the criticism of the storm response by making frequent visits to affected areas, committing the government to spending billions of dollars on the recovery in hopes of regaining lost ground.
More recently, the president has pivoted his focus to the Supreme Court, Iraq and, particularly, terrorism – delivering three speeches in three weeks on the campaign against terrorism. He has also been talking about two new crises: fears that an Asian bird flu will develop into a worldwide human killer and the deadly earthquake that struck South Asia over the weekend.
The president’s trip continues today, when Bush is pitching in at a site in Covington, La., just north of New Orleans, where the nonprofit Habitat for Humanity is building new homes for storm victims. The government said more than 32,000 evacuees from Katrina and Rita remained in 468 shelters as of last weekend, down from the high of 250,000 in shelters just after the hurricane hit.
From Covington, Bush is to fly today to the coastal Mississippi town of Pass Christian to attend the reopening of an elementary school.
