Bush views hurricane damage

By Steve Holland

LAKE CHARLES, Louisiana (Reuters) – President George W.
Bush flew over hurricane-damaged homes and oil installations on
Tuesday on his seventh trip to survey recovery efforts as he
asked Americans to reduce energy consumption.

“This area is hurting,” Bush said. “I saw firsthand how
it’s hurting.”

After directing White House staff to curb nonessential
travel, Bush was briefed by local officials about the damage
from Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, first in Texas and then in
Louisiana where he took an aerial tour that included flying
over an offshore oil rig.

With a heavily damaged airport hanger as a backdrop in Lake
Charles, Bush urged people displaced by Rita to heed the advice
of state and local officials to not return to their homes until
water and power have been restored.

“I understand there’s a lot of frustrations with the people
who left this part of the country, people who are scattered
around and want to come back and see their homes,” Bush said.
“But it’s very important for them to understand that now is not
the time to come back.”

The trip to Texas and Louisiana was the seventh since Bush
began visiting the region five days after Hurricane Katrina
struck August 29, killing more than 1,000 people. The
devastation caught the federal government off guard, putting
Bush on the defensive over the slow and chaotic response.

Katrina and Rita also helped push gasoline prices to record
highs, hitting Americans in their wallets and raising concerns
about the impact on the economy.

While asking Americans and federal agencies to conserve
energy, the White House said Bush was unlikely to curtail his
travels to the hurricane region.

“The president believes that it’s important to get a
firsthand account of the operations that are ongoing to provide
relief to the people in need,” White House spokesman Scott
McClellan said.

To help conserve energy, the White House said orders were
issued to staff to restrict nonessential travel and to reduce
use of electricity by shutting off printers, fax machines and
lights. The White House staff was also instructed to turn up
office thermostats.

The White House said it was reducing the size of the
presidential motorcade, which numbered about a dozen vehicles
during Bush’s stop in Beaumont, Texas. The motorcade can run
more than 20 vehicles for some trips.

COST SHARPLY UP TO RUN AIR FORCE ONE

One of the heftiest costs of presidential travel entails
flying Air Force One, a reconfigured Boeing 747-200B. Bush
already has made stops in Mississippi, Colorado, Texas and
Louisiana, including four in New Orleans, the low-lying city
flooded by Katrina.

While precise costs were not available, Maj. Brenda
Campbell, an Air Force spokeswoman at the Pentagon, said that
as of a month ago, before Katrina struck, fuel expenses for the
biggest airplane of the Air Force One fleet was $6,029 per
hour, compared to $3,974 an hour in fiscal year 2004.

Bush, whose administration was sharply criticized for a
slow federal response to Katrina, has responded more swiftly to
Hurricane Rita.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said, “I do want to tell you
that some things worked right this time. We learned a lot of
lessons from our previous experience with Katrina.”

During his visit to the region, Bush’s Marine One
helicopter carried him over the swampy bayou country in the
southwestern part of Louisiana that took the brunt of Rita. He
flew twice over a heavily damaged oil refinery and banked low
and circled an offshore oil rig that appeared to be in
relatively good shape.

McClellan said the White House hoped to have an estimate
for the cost of Katrina recovery efforts soon. He did not
embrace either the $100 billion figure that came out of Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist’s office, nor the estimate from the
Louisiana congressional delegation of $250 billion.