(Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo) 
 
 NEW ORLEANS - Taking a detour from his campaign battleground tour, President Obama today surveyed a Louisiana neighborhood hit hard by the floods of Hurricane Isaac, reassuring victims of federal recovery aid and hailing the first responders who ensured no lives were lost. 
 
 Obama got a first-hand look at the devastation in St. John the Baptist Parish, one of the hardest hit in the storm, situated roughly 30 miles west of downtown New Orleans. 
 
 His motorcade passed streets lined with mounds of debris, uprooted trees, ruined furniture and appliances piled in yards and along the curb. The air smelled of trash and sewage as it baked in the 100-degree heat. He later went house to house in the Ridgewood neighborhood of La Place, shaking hands with residents and hearing their stories. 
 
 "There is enormous faith here, enormous strength here," Obama said after his tour. "You can see it with these families - they were just devastated a few days ago and they are already smiling and laughing and feeling confident about the future and pulling together." 
 
 Disaster response coordinators who briefed Obama on the recovery effort said that facilitating the return of more than 3,900 evacuees to St. John's Parish and providing them with temporary housing and transportation remains the most urgent challenge. Officials said they were also scrambling to reopen public facilities, like schools and fire stations. 
 
 "Right now we're still in recovery mode. And that means that our biggest priority is helping to house people who have been displaced," Obama said. 
 
 "We're also going to make sure at the federal level that we are getting on the case very quickly on figuring out what exactly happened here and making sure it doesn't happen again," he added, referring to the failure of a local levee meant to protect the area. 
 
 Flooding caused by Isaac was unprecedented and unexpected for St. John's Parish, flowing in quickly from two directions at the height of the storm and cutting off access on Interstate 10. 
 
 "Some of the folks we just walked by literally had to be saved by boat. They were in their homes trapped, the waters came in so quickly. And this is an area that hadn't been flooded in 17 years, so as a consequence folks just weren't anticipating and accustomed to the scale and scope of the destruction," Obama said. "But because of the great work of law enforcement, National Guard, Coast Guard, making sure that folks were out in rescue mode rapidly… no lives were lost." 
 
 Obama flew to New Orleans after attending a Labor Day campaign rally in Toledo, Ohio, part of a tour leading to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., which begins Tuesday. He had planned to continue across the state for a second event in Cleveland, but cut the trip short to head south instead. 
 
 The president denied political motivations behind his trip, telling first responders and members of the press that visits to disaster areas are "not just for photo-ops" - a point he later underscored in live, televised remarks. 
 
 "When disasters like this happen, we set aside whatever petty disagreements we may have," Obama said. "Nobody's a Democrat or Republican. We're all just Americans looking out for one another." 
 
 A bipartisan contingent of state and federal leaders accompanied Obama for the visit, including Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, a top surrogate for GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, and FEMA administrator Craig Fugate. Democrats Sen. Mary Landrieu and Rep. Cedric Richmond and Republicans Sen. David Vitter and Rep. Jeff Landry also joined the presidential tour. ||||| 1 of 10. U.S. President Barack Obama (front L) is joined by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) as they tour Hurricane Isaac damage in the Ridgewood neighborhood of LaPlace, Saint John the Baptist Parish in Louisiana, September 3, 2012. 
 
 LAPLACE, Louisiana (Reuters) - President Barack Obama toured hurricane-stricken Louisiana on Monday and promised federal recovery help as he sought to show his administration was on top of the disaster response on the eve of his Democrats' national convention in North Carolina. 
 
 Obama was preceded by his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, who diverted from the campaign trail to Louisiana on Friday to inspect the fallout from Hurricane Isaac a day after accepting his party's nomination for the November 6 election. 
 
 Flying into New Orleans on a hot, sunny day, Obama traveled by motorcade to nearby St. John the Baptist Parish, one of the hardest-hit communities, where he met federal, state and local officials and then surveyed the area. 
 
 He saw evidence of the storm's fury - twisted road signs, toppled trees, blown-down fences, debris piled high and pools of water beside the road. Stepping out of his limousine, he paused to comfort a few residents and hear their stories. 
 
 "There has been enormous devastation in St. John's Parish," Obama told reporters. He cited similar destruction in other parts of Louisiana as well as neighboring Mississippi and praised emergency officials for limiting the loss of life. 
 
 The White House has taken pains to depict Obama as deeply engaged in the government's handling of Isaac and its aftermath. His Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, was heavily criticized for the sluggish federal response to Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005. 
 
 Being cast in the role of consoler-in-chief could have political benefits for Obama, who is locked in a tight race with Romney and will accept his party's nomination in a prime-time speech on Thursday night in Charlotte, North Carolina. The convention begins on Tuesday. 
 
 "How y'all doin'?" Obama asked Trebor Smith, wearing shorts and high rubber boots, outside his storm-damaged house. 
 
 "Better now," Smith said. 
 
 One woman told Obama the water rose so fast that she and her family had to be rescued by boat. 
 
 Isaac was the first hurricane to strike the United States this year, hitting New Orleans almost exactly seven years after Katrina hit, causing an estimated 1,800 deaths. 
 
 But Isaac was a much weaker storm. It was blamed for six deaths in Louisiana and two in neighboring Mississippi, and both states suffered from widespread flooding. 
 
 ABOUT 125,000 STILL WITHOUT POWER 
 
 Even as the fading remnants of Isaac moved east, about 125,000 people remained without power in Louisiana, the governor's office said. With floodwaters not yet receded in some areas, about 2,600 people remained in emergency shelters. Obama has declared disasters in Louisiana and Mississippi. 
 
 Isaac's passage through the Gulf of Mexico last week forced cancellation of one day of the Republican convention in Tampa, Florida, and took some attention away from it. 
 
 Obama, staying away from the region while emergency officials were occupied with the height of the crisis, waited until Monday for his visit. He went ahead with a Labor Day rally with union workers in Ohio but freed up time in his campaign schedule by scrapping a second event in the battleground state. 
 
 Romney, a wealthy former private equities executive who has struggled to show that he can connect with ordinary Americans, detoured to the disaster zone the day after his convention. 
 
 Obama, overheard by news photographers allowed in for a few minutes while he was being briefed, said such presidential visits to disaster zones were "not just for photo-ops." 
 
 The White House sought to play down any political implications of the two visits at the height of election season, and highlighted the fact that Louisiana's Republican governor, Bobby Jindal, accompanied both of the men. 
 
 But White House spokesman Jay Carney, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, echoed Democrats who have pointed out that Romney's running mate, congressional fiscal hawk Paul Ryan, had earlier proposed sharp cuts in disaster relief spending. 
 
 "Our biggest priority is helping to house people who've been displaced ... to make sure they have the kind of support they need to get restarted," Obama said on the ground. 
 
 Carney's comments did not sit well with the Ryan camp, which expressed outrage that the administration would raise the subject of political differences during a disaster area tour. 
 
 "Apparently there's nothing the President's team won't politicize," said Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck. "Paul Ryan believes providing aid to victims of natural disasters is a critical obligation and should be treated as a high priority within a fiscally responsible budget." 
 
 Obama made a point of praising the Federal Emergency Management Agency, saying "in the past we haven't seen the kind of coordination that is necessary." FEMA was a focus of criticism for what was seen as the botched response to Katrina in 2005. 
 
 Obama also hailed the first successful test of New Orleans' new $14.5 billion flood defenses, a reinforced network of government-built levees. But he said flooding in St. John the Baptist Parish and elsewhere showed the need for further work and pledged federal efforts to find out what went wrong and expedite solutions. 
 
 Meantime, oil operations that had been interrupted along the Gulf Coast were coming back on line. The Energy Department said the Exxon Mobil Corp's joint-venture 192,500 barrel per day (bpd) Chalmette, Louisiana, refinery was restarting on Monday. 
 
 The department also said Exxon's 502,500 bpd Baton Rouge refinery has returned to normal production after reducing throughput because of Isaac. Only Phillips 66's 247,000 bpd refinery in Alliance, Louisiana, remained shut on Monday due to flooding and power loss from the storm, the agency said. 
 
 (Additional reporting by Ian Simpson; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Eric Walsh)
– Just a day before the start of the Democratic National Convention, President Obama toured a storm-ravaged Louisiana neighborhood, promising federal aid and hailing rescuers. He drove to St. John the Baptist Parish 30 miles west of New Orleans, and went house to house in one neighborhood, reports ABC News. “There is enormous faith here, enormous strength here,” Obama said after his tour of battered houses, twisted road signs, and toppled trees yesterday. “You can see it with these families. They were just devastated a few days ago, and they are already smiling and laughing and feeling confident about the future and pulling together.” Obama's visit was designed in part to highlight the president's concern for local suffering, and his deep engagement in the government's handling of Isaac's destruction, in contrast to George Bush, who was lashed for the sluggish federal response to Hurricane Katrina, which caused an estimated 1,800 deaths. Isaac was a much weaker storm with only six deaths. Mitt Romney visited Louisiana last week.