NEW ORLEANS -- Former President George W. Bush enjoyed sympathetic audiences in New Orleans and Mississippi on Friday, where he was vilified for his administration's lackluster response to Hurricane Katrina 10 years ago.
"The darkness from a decade ago has lifted. The Crescent City has risen again and its best days lie ahead," Bush said in his remarks in New Orleans.
Bush avoided parts of the city that have yet to recover from the devastating storm, such as the Lower Ninth Ward, where President Barack Obama mingled with hundreds of residents the day before. Former President Bill Clinton will attend the city's official commemoration today.
Bush did not tour the federally managed levees whose failures flooded 80 percent of the city.
Instead, he visited a school rebuilt with support from former first lady Laura Bush's foundation, then flew to Gulfport, Miss., to honor police and firefighters who saved lives after Katrina's towering storm surge swamped the coast.
"The 10th anniversary is a good time to honor courage and resolve," Bush said in Gulfport. "It's also a good time to remember we live in a compassionate nation."
Bush took no questions at either event and made no mention of his administration's initial response to Katrina, which historians consider a low point for his presidency.
On his first visit to the area, Bush initially flew over the flooded city in Air Force One without touching down and later said, "Heckuva job, Brownie," to praise his ill-prepared Federal Emergency Management Agency director, Michael Brown, who resigned shortly thereafter.
For days after the storm, thousands of people begged to be rescued from their rooftops in New Orleans as bodies lay decomposing in the streets. In Mississippi, relief came so slowly that Biloxi's Sun Herald newspaper published a front-page editorial titled "Help Us Now."
"First impressions are lasting impressions," noted former Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, who attended the New Orleans event. But she said that Bush deserves credit for rectifying the missteps after the storm.
"Eventually, President Bush came around and realized the extent of the catastrophe," Landrieu said. "He and his administration did some things wrong, but today is about what he did right."
In his remarks in New Orleans, Bush focused mostly on crediting the city with ushering in an era of innovation in education after the storm, through a new system that is almost entirely run by charter schools.
Most city schools had been foundering before Katrina, suffering from pervasive corruption, broken buildings and failing grades. Only 56 percent of students graduated high school on time.
Katrina served as a catalyst for a state takeover. Louisiana eventually turned all 57 schools under its control into independently run charters, publicly funded and accountable to education officials for results, but with autonomy in daily operations.
"Isn't it amazing? The storm nearly destroyed New Orleans and yet, now, New Orleans is the beacon for school reform," Bush said at Warren Easton Charter High School, the city's oldest, which was badly flooded and almost abandoned before it reopened in September 2006.
The city's four-year graduation rate has since climbed to 73 percent. Warren Easton has graduated 100 percent of its seniors during the past five years.
"On this anniversary, the work of making a stronger and more hopeful New Orleans goes on," Bush said. "You've achieved a lot in the last 10 years."
Laura Bush, whose library foundation provided a grant to the school, congratulated those in the audience on restoring the facility.
"I'm thrilled that books are back on the shelves and in the hands of children where they belong," she said.
Outside the school, a small group of protesters carried signs excoriating Bush, including a message reading "George Bush still hates black people."
"He let New Orleans drown," protesters chanted.
Earlier in the morning, New Orleans resident Aaron Grant, 35, stood outside the high school carrying a sign that read, "You're early, come back in a week" over an image of Bush from Air Force One.
"I read that George Bush was going to be here, and I was flabbergasted," Grant said. "People in this city know he dropped the ball."
"I want Bush to know that we remember," Grant added.
While New Orleans' recovery has been uneven, Mississippi's Gulf Coast has recovered all its population and then some.
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant said Bush isn't to blame for the disaster that ultimately killed more than 1,830 people. "I think he certainly did a tremendous amount of good. It was just a tremendous storm. No one was prepared," Bryant said.
Bush's administration eventually spent nearly $150 billion on the recovery. On Friday, he praised former Gov. Haley Barbour, former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott and current U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran for making sure much of it landed in Mississippi.
"Haley and Lott and Thad, I kind of got tired of their phone calls. Every time, it was 'We need a little more money.' But the money was well spent, and this part of the world is coming back stronger than it was before," Bush said.
An estimated 1.5 million Gulf Coast residents fled Katrina. The black population has dropped from nearly 67 percent in 2000 to 59 percent today; whites, once about one-quarter of residents, now account for nearly a third.
Following Katrina, New Orleans officials demolished four of the city's low-income projects, vowing to replace them with modern, mixed-income developments. Despite much progress, there are still about 3,200 fewer low-income, public housing apartments than before the storm.
Information for this article was contributed by Cain Burdeau, Jeff Amy and Allen G. Breed of The Associated Press and by Abby Phillip of The Washington Post.
A Section on 08/29/2015