President Barack Obama is set to arrive around noon in the Crescent City.
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Almost 2,000 people died when the storm hit from Texas to central Florida, majority in New Orleans.
The president’s first stop was Tremé, one of the oldest black neighbourhoods in America and an area that experienced significant flooding during Katrina. A cheering crowd welcomed him to an area where homes that were inundated by the storm have been rebuilt.
“That, more than any other reason, is why I’ve come back here today”, said Obama, making his ninth visit to the city.
“Not long ago, our gathering here in the Lower 9th might have seemed unlikely”, he will say, according to the excerpts.
Obama is offering New Orleans as an example of what can happen when people rally to build a better future after facing an extraordinary challenge.
Thursday’s trip is the ninth time Obama has traveled to Louisiana, including a visit in 2010 where he spoke at Xavier University to mark five years since Hurricane Katrina.
President Barack Obama pauses as he delivers remarks at an event commemorating the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Thursday, August 27, 2015.
Despite the unmistakably upbeat message there is no doubt that plenty of work still remains in New Orleans – Obama admitted as much – where more than 1,800 people were killed and one million more displaced when Katrina barreled in from the Gulf of Mexico.
The survey found that on a “range of topics-such as the local economy, the public schools, hurricane and flood protection, and the overall quality of life in their communities-the city’s white residents think things are better …[and] African-Americans are far more skeptical”.
Video of residents seeking refuge on rooftops, inside the Superdome and at the convention centre dominated news coverage as Katrina came to symbolize government failure at every level.
The president plans to celebrate progress that has been made since the 2005 storm, the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. It was also one of the deadliest.
Welcoming Obama at Armstrong global Airport was Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican presidential candidate, Senator Bill Cassidy and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu.
Mr Obama said the storm helped reveal inequality in New Orleans. They lost their homes to hurricanes and now, as the city becomes more white and more expensive, they may lose their New Orleans again. As Roberta Brandes Gratz’ tells it in her new volume “We’re Still Here Ya Bastards” (Nation Books, 2015), New Orleans residents pulled their city back together largely on their own, despite – rather than thanks to – corrupt and wrongheaded attempts at assistance from government agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, whose failures in the wake of this disaster have been widely reported.
Still, the city has recovered from its post-storm state as billions of federal dollars flowed in to rebuild.
– From Brown’s 2006 appearance on The Colbert Report You thought we could get through Katrinapalooza week without hearing from Michael “Brownie” Brown?
He then headed to lunch at Willie Mae’s Scotch House, famous for its fried chicken.
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“We’ve made a lot of progress over the last 10 years”.
