President Obama visited New Orleans Thursday on his first trip to the city as president. He pledged to help make New Orleans stronger than it was before Hurricane Katrina.

President Obama: “Even with all the action we’ve taken, all the progress we’ve made, we know how much work is left to be done. Whether you’re driving through New Orleans, Biloxi or the southwestern part of Louisiana, it’s clear how far we have to go before we can call this recovery a real success.”

The Obama administration has been criticized for not prioritizing the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. Four years after Katrina, New Orleans still has more than 60,000 abandoned properties. The city has no public hospital to treat the poor. And tens of thousands of residents remain displaced. A recent survey of fifty leading on-the-ground community leaders gave Obama merely a “D+” for his Gulf Coast efforts so far. The survey was conducted by the Institute for Southern Studies. On Thursday, Obama spent less than four hours in New Orleans before flying to San Francisco for a Democratic National Committee fundraiser.