New Orleans ? President Bush, ducking low-hanging tree limbs and electrical wires, rode in an open truck Monday for his first close-up look at New Orleans’ ravaged, trash-strewn, flooded neighborhoods.

Bush replied testily to a reporter who asked whether he felt let down by federal officials in responding to the disaster.

“Look, there will be plenty of time to play the blame game,” he said. “That’s what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to say somebody is at fault. And, look, I want to know. I want to know exactly what went on and how it went on, and we’ll continually assess inside my administration.”

Bush spent Sunday night on the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima, and toured the city for 45 minutes. The president’s convoy moved slowly through just-drained neighborhoods caked with black mud and through streets where the water line reached well into the trucks’ tire wells or lapped at curbs. At times, the stench was overwhelming.

Vice Admiral Thad Allen, left, and an unidentified man, help lift up a downed power line during a tour of downtown New Orleans with President Bush, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, in red, Lt. Gen. Russ Honore, second from right, and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, right.

Bush seized on the news of falling water levels throughout New Orleans and pronounced the city on the mend. Business owners were issued passes to retrieve records and equipment, and more than half of southeastern Louisiana’s water treatment plants were back in operation.

“My impression of New Orleans is this: that there is a recovery on the way,” Bush said in the shadow of a freeway overpass, destroyed cars littering the landscape behind him and rescue choppers occasionally drowning out his words.

This was his third and longest trip here since Katrina pulverized Gulf Coast communities and submerged most of New Orleans two weeks earlier. He is expected to return to the region Thursday.

Before Monday, Bush had only seen New Orleans’ deepest misery from the air – from aboard Air Force on the way back to Washington from his Texas ranch and again from a helicopter two days after that. His only foray into the city was to one of the breached levees on its edge.

The president ended his two-day stay in the region in Gulfport, Miss., a town on the coast where Katrina’s winds turned scores of homes and businesses into matchsticks.