WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says New Orleans is "moving forward" a decade after Hurricane Katrina dealt it a devastating blow, and has become an example of what can happen when people rally around each other to build a better future out of the despair of tragedy.
Obama was marking the storm's 10th anniversary by meeting Thursday with residents who continue to rebuild their lives and communities. He was also delivering remarks at a newly opened community center in the Lower 9th Ward, a largely African-American neighborhood that was one of the hardest hit by the storm. It is still struggling to recover.
"Not long ago, our gathering here in the Lower 9th might have seemed unlikely," Obama says in speech excerpts released by the White House. "But today, this new community center stands as a symbol of the extraordinary resilience of this city and its people, of the entire Gulf Coast, indeed, of the United States of America. You are an example of what's possible when, in the face of tragedy and hardship, good people come together to lend a hand, and to build a better future."
"That, more than any other reason, is why I've come back here today," Obama plans to say on his ninth trip to the city. He also visited on the hurricane's fifth anniversary in 2010.
Obama was in the first year of a U.S. Senate term when Katrina's powerful winds and driving rain bore down on Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2005. The storm caused major damage to the Gulf Coast from Texas to central Florida while powering a storm surge that breached the system of levees that were built to protect New Orleans from flooding.
Nearly 2,000 people died as a result, mostly in New Orleans, 80 percent of which was flooded for weeks. One million people were displaced.
See Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full coverage.