Bush visits Gulf Coast

NEW ORLEANS – In his first visit to the Gulf Coast in six months, President Bush said Thursday that he heard “loud and clear” the growing complaints in the region that the federal response to Hurricane Katrina has become ensnared in red tape.

But in a trip designed to highlight the progress that has been made in the 18 months since the hurricane devastated New Orleans and the Mississippi coast, the president insisted that “people’s lives are improving and there is hope.”

As billions of federal dollars have sat in state accounts untapped in part because of complex federal rules, Louisiana officials have become vocal about what they called the Bush administration’s wavering interest in the rebuilding process. The frustration came to a boil when Bush failed to mention Katrina during his State of the Union address.

After meeting with state and local officials in Biloxi, Miss., on Thursday, Bush said he had heard their “continued frustration with the slowness of federal response at times. It’s important for me to hear that.”

Bush’s trip, his 14th since Katrina, was a continuation of his attempts to undo the political damage caused by the storm, which proved to be a pivotal event in his presidency. The federal government’s bungled response to the disaster helped lower Bush’s approval ratings.

Only 45 percent of the pre-Katrina population of New Orleans has returned to the city, which, while slowly improving, remains a shadow of its former self: only 40 percent of the food establishments, 30 percent of the child care centers and 17 percent of the buses are back in business, according to a January report by the Brookings Institution. The Louisiana-run Road Home program, which provides home rebuilding grants for homeowners who lacked adequate storm insurance, has sent checks to 2,718 hurricane victims as of Wednesday, despite having received more than 110,000 applications and federal funding of more than $7.5 billion.