President Barack Obama on Tuesday promised a sustained national effort to rebuild flood-ravaged southern Louisiana “even after the TV cameras leave”.
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Obama has been under pressure for days to visit after flooding killed at least 13 people and displaced thousands from their homes this month.
Just back from his annual vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, Obama arrived in Louisiana on the stroke of noon.
The White House defended Obama’s actions by touting the federal response to the disaster, including making $120 million in emergency funds available and the president dispatching a contingent of federal officials to Louisiana, led by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate.
“The survivors of the flooding in Louisiana are not well served by a political discussion; they’re well served by a competent, effective, strong, coordinated government response”, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday.
“It made my day”, said LeJuan Woods, who spent most of the past week putting in long hours to clean out his home. We are heartbroken by the loss of life.
“There ain’t nothing he can do for us that Louisiana ain’t done for ourselves”, Murphy said.
Congress could be asked to decide on a bonus federal aid when more comprehensive damage assessment has been carried out, Obama said.
“One of the benefits of being five months short of leaving here is that I don’t think much about politics”, he said.
“What I want the people of Louisiana to know is that you are not alone in this”, Obama said.
A spokeswoman for the parish’s sheriff’s office said that she had been told a truck came from Trump, but she hadn’t seen it herself.
“It looks like a war zone in this neighborhood”, Sibley said. “We are going to keep on helping them every way that we can”, ABC News quoted Obama as saying.
The meeting, which lasted a little more than 20 minutes and happened at a firehouse near a Baton Rouge airport, also took place with the family of Alton Sterling, who was fatally shot by police officers in the city last month. Authorities believe Sterling’s death also inspired a gunman to shoot law enforcement officers in Baton Rouge weeks later, killing three of them.
But while residents such as Baton Rouge’s Marie Sibley pleaded to Obama “to just help us”, others like Albany’s Catherine Murphy were less optimistic.
Trump visited Baton Rouge on Friday, allowing him to cast the president as golfing while Louisianans suffered.
The natural disaster has been referred as the deadliest to hit the U.S. since Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
The White House earlier this week dismissed the criticism over Obama’s decision not to visit the area sooner, and rejected comparisons to then-President George W. Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina in the state in 2005.
“Tuesday’s too late”, Mr Trump told Fox News this weekend.
Despite earlier reservations, Edwards told CNN that Trump’s appearance in Louisiana helped bring national attention to the disaster in his state on Sunday, August 21. He had said he anxious that the Republican nominee’s plans would boil down to a “photo-op” in a statement released ahead of Trump’s visit.
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Obama’s visit was a reminder of the political dangers and opportunities that natural disasters can pose.
