NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Residents and lawmakers in still-recovering Louisiana reacted angrily Monday after President George W. Bush defended the government’s response during Hurricane Katrina in some of his last comments before leaving office.

In his final presidential news conference, Bush stood behind federal actions after the Aug. 29, 2005 storm, even though he admitted once again that some things could have been done differently.

“Don’t tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed,” Bush said.

Former Gov. Kathleen Blanco, the Democrat who was in office when the storm hit, said state and local officials and volunteers played a major role in that effort, and said federal authorities shouldn’t claim sole credit.

“President Bush is totally wrong about the federal response,” said Blanco, who did not seek re-election after her image was battered following the state’s response to both hurricanes Katrina and Rita. “I think eventually we were able to get resources, and I’d have to say it was an excruciating effort on my part,” Blanco said. “… We had to jump through hoops to get that kind of support from the administration. In the end, we finally did.”

After levees failed during Katrina, an estimated 80 percent of New Orleans was under water. The surrounding area and parts of the Mississippi Gulf Coast were essentially wiped out. A massive military presence didn’t arrive until days after the storm, and more than 1,600 people across Louisiana and Mississippi were killed.

More than three years after Katrina, New Orleans still shows scars of the hurricane. The Lower 9th Ward remains largely uninhabited, with weeds nearly obscuring decrepit houses. Roads remain cracked and warped. In some neighborhoods apartment buildings and shopping strips are empty. Some houses still bear the haunting markings left by search teams in the frantic aftermath of the storm.

State and local officials have complained about the red tape tied to aid programs. Residents who’ve returned have dealt with red tape, too, and in New Orleans, there are also issues of crime and a still-rebuilding health care system.

Progress is being made, especially in rebuilding the levee system that protects the city. Mayor Ray Nagin said 2009 should be a year of “unprecedented construction,” with money lined up for infrastructure and neighborhood-level rebuilding and economic development projects. By one estimate, more than 70 percent of the city’s population had returned.

But it’s disappointing for the Rev. Terrence Ranson, who said Bush hasn’t lived up to the promises of a better, stronger New Orleans he made during a speech from empty Jackson Square weeks after Katrina.

“It’s getting to the point it’s almost like a forgotten cause,” he said. “What I see now is if we get back, we’re getting back to the way things were before the storm and not to that bigger, better, brighter (city) and all the things the president and the mayor said.”

Melanie Ehrlich, a resident and frequent critic of the federally funded, state-run program to help homeowners rebuild, said the Katrina response “is still a national disgrace, and New Orleans, in many places, still looks like a war-torn city.”

She said it is residents, not the government, that has rebuilt the city.

“They’ve done this in spite of a response by the federal government that has been too slow and much more concerned about bureaucratic rules that did not fit with this historic disaster” and whose levees breached, she said.