New Orleans needs you - Bush

2006-08-29 22:51

New Orleans - US President George W Bush mourned Hurricane Katrina's victims on Tuesday and vowed to do right by its survivors - one year after the killer storm devastated New Orleans, appalled the world, and forever scarred his presidency.

Bush took "full responsibility" in a speech here for Washington's botched response to the disaster.

He promised "we're addressing what went wrong" and predicted that the festive city would someday be "louder, brasher and better".

"This anniversary is not an end.

"I've come back to say we will stand with the people of southern Louisiana and southern Mississippi until the job is done," he said at a school still under repair, but ready for students.

He also pleaded with those who have yet to return to New Orleans, saying: "The people of this city have a responsibility as well.

"I know you love New Orleans. And New Orleans needs you. She needs people coming home."

The city, known as the Big Easy, sidestepped the worst of Katrina's winds when the hurricane ravaged the Gulf Coast on August 29 2005.

Sombre memorial service

But the violent storm surge smashed levees and rushing floods swallowed 80% of the city, reaching depths of 6m in some areas.

The bulk of the storm's more than 1nbsp;500 deaths were in those flooded neighbourhoods.

Before attending a sombre memorial service at Saint Louis Cathedral, Bush took his motorcade down Canal Street, still blighted by boarded-up storefronts and shattered windows, to Betsy's House of Pancakes.

As he squeezed past tables, waitress Joyce Labruzzo jokingly asked him: "Mister President, are you going to turn your back on me?"

"No, ma'am," Bush said, with a laugh and a pause. "Not again."

After breakfast with New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin and Lieutenant-General Russel Honore, the head of military operations in response to Katrina, Bush headed to the cathedral to remember the victims of the devastating storm.

A moment of silence

With Bush and First Lady Laura Bush in the front pew, Honore read from the Book of Lamentations, intoning "I have forgotten what happiness is" and a verse about "homeless poverty" in a reading that ends with a celebration of faith.

At 14:38 GMT, the president and his wife knelt for a moment of silence at the precise moment when, one year ago, the levees gave way and the city flooded.

- AFP