Bush Admits New Orleans Failures

A penitent George Bush marked the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans yesterday, acknowledging that his government's response to the devastating storm had been woefully inadequate.

"We're addressing what went wrong," he said in a speech at a high school gymnasium. He praised rescue teams who plucked survivors from flooded neighbourhoods in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf coast.

"Unfortunately, the hurricane also brought terrible scenes we never thought we'd see in America," the president said, hours after church bells across the city marked the moment when the levees broke and the water rushed in. More than 1,800 people were killed by the storm, the majority of them in New Orleans.

"Citizens drowned in their attics. Desperate mothers crying out on national TV for food and water. A breakdown of law and order and a government, at all levels, that fell short of its responsibilities," the president said. "When the rain stopped ... our television screens showed faces worn down by poverty and despair. And for most of you, the storms were only the beginning of our difficulties."

It was a sentiment most Louisianians would agree with. A year after the storm, and nearly a year after President Bush promised to rebuild New Orleans "higher and better", only half its population has returned, large areas are ghost towns and federal assistance has yet to begin to flow. Only half the city has electricity, half its hospitals are closed and gang warfare is soaring.

Across the country, 67 % of Americans disapprove of the way the president handled the Katrina disaster.

When Mr Bush visited Betsy's Pancake House on a tour of New Orleans, one of the waitresses asked him: "Mr President, are you going to turn your back on me?"

"No ma'am, not again," the president promised. People in the restaurant laughed but many of the city's residents, particularly black people, believe they were abandoned when Katrina struck.

With another storm approaching the Florida coast, national guard troops are due to begin arriving in the state today. Tropical storm Ernesto was predicted to bring tornadoes and up to 15 inches (37cm) of rain to many parts of flood-prone southern Florida, leaving tens of thousands without power.