New Orleans mayor: ‘We are stronger today’

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu (D) said on Sunday that his city is resurrected following the destruction of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

“We are stronger today than we were before,” Landrieu told host John Dickerson on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

{mosads}“The levees are much stronger than they were before,” he added. “They’re much safer.”

Landrieu argued on Sunday that the Big Easy’s rebound is no reason for abandoning additional investment in the area.

“This was as infrastructure failure, not a natural disaster,” he said of Katrina. “We have to continue to rebuild the coast.”

The New Orleans mayor then added that hurricanes are a difficult fact of life in the region.

“We have had hurricanes from the beginning of our 300-year history,” Landrieu said. “You can’t guarantee we won’t get hurt again.”

Landrieu made the remarks as his city and its neighbors observe the 10th anniversary of Katrina making landfall.

Multiple political luminaries visited the city on Saturday evening for a service championing its recovery since the disaster.

Former President Clinton and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) were two of the many notable people who praised News Orleans for its resilience this weekend.

Hurricane Katrina remains the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. The storm and related flooding killed more than 1,200 people and resulted in approximately $108 billion in damage.