Obama to visit New Orleans for Katrina anniversary

President Barack Obama will use the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina to reaffirm his commitment to the Gulf Coast amid lingering questions over his administration’s response to the BP oil spill. Obama ends his Martha’s Vineyard vacation Sunday and heads to New Orleans, five years to the day from when Hurricane Katrina raged ashore, busting through crumbling levees and flooding 80 percent of the city; more than 1,600 people died during the storm and its horrific aftermath. Then-President George W. Bush was harshly criticized in many quarters for not responding aggressively enough to the disaster. The unfinished business of helping make New Orleans whole falls within Obama’s purview now. On Sunday, he will have the delicate task of commemorating the ravaging storm while reassuring residents who may still believe the government has failed them—with respect to both Katrina and the BP spill. Obama will speak at Xavier University, a historically black, Catholic university that was badly flooded when the levees were breached. Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton says Obama would commemorate the lives lost in the flooding, celebrate progress made in recovering, and “recommit the nation to the Gulf region and to all those still working to rebuild lives and communities.”