Bush takes the ground tour

President deniesrace had anything to do with response to hurricane, declares New Orleans on mend

FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS | Staff correspondent J. Jioni Palmer and staff writer Chau Lam contributed to this story.

September 13, 2005

NEW ORLEANS - President George W. Bush, ducking low-hanging tree limbs and electrical wires, rode in an open truck yesterday for his first close-up look at the city's ravaged, trash-strewn, flooded neighborhoods. He denied that poor black victims of Hurricane Katrina were ignored because of their race.

After a federal response criticized as slow and inadequate, Michael Brown, the embattled director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, announced his resignation. Bush replied testily to a reporter who asked whether he felt let down by federal officials in responding to the disaster.

"Look, there will be plenty of time to play the blame game," he said. "That's what you're trying to do. You're trying to say somebody is at fault. And look, I want to know. I want to know exactly what went on and how it went on, and we'll continually assess inside my administration."

Bush toured the city for 45 minutes. The president's convoy moved slowly through just-drained neighborhoods caked with black mud and streets where the water line reached well into the trucks' tire wells or lapped at curbs. At times, the stench was overwhelming.

Bush seized on the news of falling water levels and pronounced the city on the mend. Business owners were issued passes to retrieve records and equipment, and more than half of southeastern Louisiana's water treatment plants were back in operation.

"My impression of New Orleans is this: that there is a recovery on the way," Bush said.

This was his third and longest trip to the city since Katrina pulverized the Gulf Coast and submerged most of New Orleans. He is expected to return to the region Thursday, and aides were discussing plans for him to address the nation from a site to be determined.

Bush's tour of New Orleans started by regular motorcade, taking him in his Suburban through the nearly deserted city - past the now-infamous Superdome, through parts of the central business district and the Bywater District, with orange Xs on doors signifying the visit of a search-and-rescue team, and into the French Quarter. There, he and his entourage jumped into the military vehicles.

Bush stood in a truck bed flanked by a grim-looking New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, both of whom have criticized the federal response.

Many people, particularly in the black community, have suggested that one reason for the slow response was that most victims, especially in New Orleans, were poor and black and that the administration doesn't care about them. The president said that wasn't so.

"The storm didn't discriminate and neither will the recovery effort," he said. Bush also clarified his oft-criticized remark that no one had anticipated levees being breached. He said there was an initial impression that the city had escaped heavy damage "and I myself thought we had dodged a bullet." He said he got that impression from the media.

Nagin said yesterday that there were potential problems with other levees that could cause more flooding, further hampering recovery efforts.

He said there is a breach along the London Avenue canal, but cautioned that officials "have not determined how significant" it is.

Nagin also said there is growing concern that water might have begun to burrow under levee number 10 - he did not know its exact location - creating what is known as "tunneling." Tunneling, he said, can erode the foundation, causing it to collapse. Because the potential danger is well below ground, Nagin said, officials are using infrared imaging technology to assess the damage.

In another development yesterday, the bodies of more than 40 mostly elderly patients were found in a flooded hospital in the biggest known cluster of corpses to be discovered so far.

The exact circumstances under which they died were unclear, with at least one official of Memorial Medical Center saying at least a few were dead before the storm, and another saying the rising temperature in the hospital afterward likely contributed to some of the deaths.

Meanwhile, Katrina survivors will not be coming to New York State after all, despite more than a week of preparation making sure housing and other resources were available, state and county officials said.

Staff correspondent J. Jioni Palmer and staff writer Chau Lam contributed to this story.