

Obama to New Orleans 10 Years After Katrina: 'You Inspire Me'

Years after candidate Barack Obama declared “America failed the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast” he returned to the city to hail the recovery.


"I’m here to hold up a mirror and say because of you, the people of New Orleans working together, this city is moving in the right direction and I have never been more confident that together we will get to where we need to go," the president said at a speech Thursday afternoon at the Andrew P. Sanchez Community Center in Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Louisiana. "You inspire me."

President Barack Obama delivers a speech at the Andrew P. Sanchez Community Center in Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Louisiana.CARLOS BARRIA / Reuters




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"Not long ago, our gathering here in the Lower Ninth might have seemed unlikely," the president said. "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."



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“We came to realize that what started out as a natural disaster became a man-made disaster, a failure of government to look after its own citizens,” Obama said. “What the storm laid bare was another tragedy, a deeper tragedy that had been brewing for decades.”

Obama went on to say New Orleans had been plagued by structural inequality, a lack of jobs and affordable health care for people of color, and cycles of poverty.

"And so, like a body weakened, already undernourished, when the storm hit there [were] no resources to fall back on," he said.


While acknowledging the work that was still to come, Obama said the progress New Orleans had made was “remarkable.”

“If Katrina was initially an example of what happens when government fails, the recovery has been an example of what happens when government works together,” he said.



"Like so much of this area it was devastated during the storm,” But what we're seeing is an example of the incredible federal, state and local partnerships that have helped revitalized this community,” the president said of Tremé.
