US President George W Bush today declared "better days" ahead for New Orleans despite complaints over slow rebuilding and amid lingering political fallout two years after Hurricane Katrina's destruction.
Widely criticised for a slow federal response to the disaster that left buildings in ruins and thousands homeless, Mr Bush made his 15th visit to the region and tried to calm frustration at the pace of relief efforts.
"My attitude is this: New Orleans, better days are ahead. It's sometimes hard for people to see progress when you live in a community all the time," he said following a moment of silence at 9.38am. local time, the time of day when the levees broke and the city began to flood two years ago.
Two years after the worst natural disaster in the United States, critics say the federal response is still lagging. Katrina flooded 80 per cent of New Orleans and killed about 1,400 people.
Only about 60 per cent of the city's pre-storm population of half a million has come back. Democrats running for the White House in 2008 elections have seized on New Orleans as a symbol of the Republican administration's failures.
"If George Bush's government were as good and decent and focused as the people of New Orleans, whole parts of the city would not still look like the storm just hit," said Democrat John Edwards, who launched his presidential campaign last year from the hard-hit lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.
"This is a national disgrace," he said in a statement.
Mr Bush's motorcade passed scores of boarded up homes and businesses, some still with painted markings left from the search by emergency workers for survivors and victims.
Mr Bush stressed the federal government's commitment to helping in rebuilding efforts. "And so I come telling the folks in this part of the world we still understand the problems. And we're still engaged," he said.
The Bush administration announced last week that it would seek $4.9 billion from Congress to help complete the levee reconstruction and drainage systems, not slated to be completed until 2011.
Only work until 2009 has been funded.