Bush surveys Gustav response as evacuees head home

By Tim Gaynor

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - President George W. Bush made a quick visit to Louisiana on Wednesday to survey damage from Hurricane Gustav as New Orleans officials lifted roadblocks to allow tens of thousands who fled the city to return despite widespread power outages.

Bush, widely criticized for a slow response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said government "was much better coordinated this time than we were with Katrina," which killed 1,500 people and caused $80 billion (45 billion pound) in damages.

But after a briefing by emergency service providers in the state capital of Baton Rouge, Bush said much work was left to be done, most importantly restoring power to 1.1 million homes and business.

He did not visit New Orleans, which escaped the brunt of the storm and saw its vulnerable levees hold, and said the thrust of relief efforts targeted hard-hit rural areas.

Nearly 2 million people fled the Louisiana coast, including some 95 percent of New Orleans' residents -- an unprecedented exodus credited with saving lives.

New Orleans officials lifted police roadblocks to allow residents to return, and cars and trucks packed with families, bedding, cats and dogs streamed back into the city.

Although the scars of Katrina and subsequent flooding from the levees' collapse are all too evident three years later, especially in places like New Orleans' poor Lower Ninth Ward, many said the government did a better job this time.

"The levees held up pretty nice, they got everybody out of here this time," said construction worker Larry Taylor, who stayed behind in his Lower Ninth Ward house. "I think people are starting to trust them a little bit now."