The fallout from Katrina also dusted his Democratic successor, Barack Obama. Whenever there was a problem - whether the BP oil spill , the Ebola crisis or even his decision not to attend a memorial march for victims of the terrorist killings at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris - his critics suggested it could be "Obama's Katrina. Bush also served as president, plans to visit New Orleans on Friday Aug. For his part, Bush acknowledged he should have acted more decisively after Katrina struck and the levees failed.
But he said charges that he didn't care enough were flat out wrong and that he helped bring unprecedented resources to the Gulf Coast to deal with the unprecedented disaster. Some Louisiana officials say his support for robust federal funding for recovery, and his frequent visits to the city after the hurricane, helped improve his image in the region, though certainly not entirely. But Bush admits he should have acted sooner. Some asserted that Bush didn't care about the tragedy.
But he said the truth is "my heart broke at the sight of helpless people trapped on their rooftops waiting to be rescued. Bush was criticized for remaining on vacation in Texas as Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. I couldn't take my eyes off the devastation below. But when the pictures were released, I realized I had made a serious mistake. The photo of me hovering over the damage suggested I was detached from the suffering on the ground," he wrote.
Bush said delays in the federal government's response, particularly in sending federal troops, convinced "many of our citizens, particularly in the African-American community," that their president didn't care about them. It eroded citizens' trust in their government. It exacerbated divisions in our society and politics.
And it cast a cloud over my second term. It was four days after Katrina that Bush uttered the eight words that might go down among the most recognized of his presidency: "'Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. In his book, he explained what prompted the public praise. Bush wrote that he had asked Alabama Gov. Bob Riley and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour whether they were getting the federal support they needed, and both said they were.
When I spoke to the press a few minutes later, I repeated the praise: 'Brownie,' I said, 'you're doing a heck of a job. As complaints about Mike Brown's performance mounted, especially in New Orleans, critics turned my words of encouragement into a club to bludgeon me. Obama has followed up the work and commitments of the Bush administration to rebuild the New Orleans area by continuing to funnel billions of dollars into the region.
It was a natural disaster but also a manmade catastrophe -- a shameful breakdown in government that left countless men, and women, and children abandoned and alone. It was not hard to imagine a day when we'd tell our children that a once vibrant and wonderful city had been laid low by indifference and neglect. But Bush said they now can choose where to send their kids, and principals and teachers have more authority to cut through bureaucracy.
Bush also visited Warren Easton a year after the storm, when the school was newly reopened and nearly all its students remained homeless, living in FEMA trailers or sleeping on couches. Civil rights lawyer Tracie Washington, who directs the Louisiana Justice Institute, said Bush failed to live up to his promise to tackle historic injustices, a vow he made in Jackson Square shortly after Katrina.
Still, Bush came and went without any significant protests over his Katrina legacy. Sections U. Science Technology Business U. George W. Accordingly, his approval rating sank to the lowest level since he had taken office. On September 8, a Zogby poll had him at 41 percent. Politically, Bush was wounded, never to fully recover, his standing made all the worse as the economy tanked in The biggest mistake of all was one of optics.
Bush chose to fly over New Orleans in Air Force One instead of doing an on-the-ground inspection—a clear sign of aloofness, indeed, of fear. The photo-op of the man in charge staring out the window of his plane was disastrous.
No one expected the president to go to the Lower Ninth Ward and pull people out of houses. But making a detour above the disaster zone was the sight of a man slumming, a man in a bubble, a man deluged.
Douglas Brinkley is a Vanity Fair contributor, presidential historian, professor at Rice University, and former longtime resident of New Orleans. He is the author of the book The Great Deluge. What a weird moment in U. Hell and High Water. In a speech at a secondary school, he said he would never forget the images of "misery and ruin". It comes a day after his successor, Barack Obama, said New Orleans was "moving on" from the disaster.
Hurricane Katrina killed nearly 2, people and displaced one million. It was the most expensive natural disaster in US history, causing destruction along the Gulf coast from Florida to Texas. But the city of New Orleans, in Louisiana, bore the brunt. George Bush's administration's slow response to the disaster remains a source of deep resentment in the city.
He said Hurricane Katrina had "brought despair to what should have been a season of hope," referring to the start of the school year, when "many students had no school to return to and many had nowhere to live".
New Orleans, he said, was a city "whose levies gave out but whose people never gave up". His wife, Laura, who also spoke, helped raise money to save the school.
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