Bush to Orleanians: ‘Come home’

NEW ORLEANS — President Bush yesterday said New Orleans, a year after being devastated by what he called a disaster of “biblical scale,” is rebuilding better than ever and it’s now time for displaced residents to return.

“New Orleans is calling her children home,” the president said as he spent the morning with local leaders, visited with Fats Domino, attended Mass at the city’s Catholic cathedral and spoke at its oldest public high school, which will reopen next week as a charter school after suffering extensive water damage during last year’s Hurricane Katrina.

He predicted the city will return “louder, brasher and better.”

The president said he takes “full responsibility for the federal government’s response” to the hurricane, and while not promising any major new aid, he did call for Congress to extend business-friendly provisions and threw his support behind a new energy plan through Congress that would give Louisiana a bigger share of revenues from offshore oil-drilling leases.

Top Democrats said New Orleans residents are not to blame for not returning. They said the president and Republicans must do more than take the blame, by opening up the federal checkbook and making sure programs he promised last year get up and running.

“We’ve got the money and the brains and the heart in our country to get the Gulf Coast back on its feet. We just haven’t had the leadership in our nation’s Capitol,” said Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat. “No more photo ops and empty promises. No more excuses for blocking real solutions. It’s long past time for action.”

Outside of the politics, yesterday was filled with prayer services, remembrance of the city that was lost and taking stock of where it stands after one year.

At the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, New Orleans Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes celebrated a Mass that included a pause for silent prayer at 9:38 a.m., the time of the first levee breach. In other parts of the city, bells rang to mark the anniversary.

With Mr. Bush, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco and other officials present, Archbishop Hughes said the hurricane offers the city a chance to move from racial injustice and a culture that is “sometimes degrading of the dignity of the human person, and too prone to human violence.”

“If Katrina, which means cleansing, enables us to work together to realize this vision, God will have helped us to draw a greater good out of our immense suffering,” he said.

The cathedral, which stands in the middle of the historic French Quarter, had its own rebirth before. It stands on the site of another church, built in 1727, which was destroyed in the 1788 fire that burned most of the city. The church was mostly spared in last year’s storm, as was much of the high-lying French Quarter, but other parts of the city remain devastated.

Still, the archbishop said there are plenty of signs for hope, particularly in the city’s schools, once known as the nation’s worst. The cathedral’s own school changed its policies after the hurricane to open enrollment up to anyone, regardless of religion or other factors, and he said the city’s schools must also move to a system of “healthy competition and open enrollment.”

Mr. Bush and his wife, Laura, echoed that progress at Warren Easton Senior High School later in the day, praising leaders for “thinking differently” by designating it — and more than half of the rest of the city’s schools that will reopen — as charter schools.

“I can’t thank you enough for seizing the moment, to say to the good folks and the families, we will do a better job with the school system here in New Orleans,” the president said.

Mr. Bush met with New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin on Monday night and again yesterday morning. According to local reports, Mr. Nagin told Mr. Bush to accelerate the pace of federal aid coming to homeowners in the region.

While stressing that state and local governments must make plans and be responsible, Mr. Bush said yesterday that “all of us agree, at all levels of government, that we got to get the money as quickly as possible in the hands of the people.”

Just how far the city has to go is clear, though, with the population estimated to have dropped to less than half of what it had been, and political squabbling between local, state and federal officials over the next steps in rebuilding.

Just behind the high school were houses still bearing the boards that are the scabs from the storm, the paint markings from rescue workers still visible on walls and piles of garbage and household debris left in uncollected piles, and the owners still living in white Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailers parked in front yards or driveways. And those were the lucky ones who lived at their own addresses. Two blocks away from the school was a lot with about 50 more FEMA trailers, most of them still occupied.

Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Mr. Bush is at fault for having abandoned the very relief programs he touted a year ago, during his prime-time address from Jackson Square. Mr. Dean said Mr. Bush has failed to enact worker recovery accounts and an urban homesteading program.

And black congressional Democrats said Mr. Bush has failed to live up to his promises of aid.

“Democrats want to lead the Gulf Coast in a new direction by working to improve housing, health care, education and other vital needs,” said Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, who is touring the Gulf region with 24 other House Democrats.

Republicans, though, warned against trying to use Katrina in this year’s congressional elections.

“Campaign-style bus tours, political rallies and attacks won’t build a single home or create real jobs in the Gulf Coast,” said Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, who said Democrats’ criticisms “would be taken a lot more seriously if their comments weren’t wrapped in a political banner.”