President Obama got a look on Thursday at the muddy wreckage that Hurricane Sandy left in its wake, flying over ravaged neighborhoods in Queens, consoling devastated homeowners under tents and in the streets on Staten Island, and promising a strong and continuing federal role in the recovery.
"We're reminded that we are bound together and have to look out for each other," Mr. Obama said after walking down a block that had been all but demolished in the storm.
Mr. Obama, flanked by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, said he wanted federal officials to work with state and local leaders in New York and New Jersey on "a game plan for how we're going to be able to resource the rebuilding process."
The president also said he was assigning Shaun Donovan, the secretary of housing and urban development and a former New York City housing official, to oversee the federal recovery effort in the New York area.
"We're going to have to put some of the turf battles aside," he said. "We're going to have to make sure everybody's focused on doing the job, as opposed to worrying about who's getting the credit or who's getting the contracts and all that stuff that sometimes goes into the rebuilding process."
But administration officials were vague when they were asked about requests for federal aid for New York, including $30 billion from Mr. Cuomo and $1 billion sought by Senators Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten E. Gillibrand for the first phase of recovery.
Aboard Air Force One on the way to New York, the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, told reporters that the administration had not received details of Mr. Cuomo's proposal; the president listened during the flight as the two senators made their case for a significant infusion of federal money.
Mr. Schumer said later that the president made it clear that he would push to get the money to help the region recover.
"He left us with the feeling that he was very hands-on and would work very hard to get the funds we need," Mr. Schumer said. Mr. Obama toured the area on a day of thin, almost hazy sun, a bright contrast to the slate-gray sky on the day the storm hurled a wall of water against the coast.
He flew to Kennedy International Airport and then boarded a helicopter that took him over the Rockaway Peninsula and over Breezy Point, a shorefront community where more than 110 homes were destroyed by fire on the night the hurricane tore through. Some homes there now have plastic sheeting where the roofs used to be.
The storm killed more than 100 people as it churned its way up the East Coast, with most of the deaths in low-lying sections of New York and New Jersey. It exacted a particularly high toll on Staten Island. Of 43 deaths attributed to the storm in New York City, 23 were on Staten Island.
On Thursday, the president's helicopter landed at a former Army Air Corps installation on Staten Island that has become a center for efforts to rebuild. A group of about 200 residents cheered as he arrived and chatted with the Staten Island borough president, James P. Molinaro, and other officials.
In another tent, volunteers told Mr. Obama they were from Texas, others from West Virginia, others from elsewhere. "We got the whole country represented here," the president said. "We're proud of you guys."
He also met with two parents, Damien and Glenda Moore, whose young sons — Connor, 4, and Brandon, 2 — were swept away as the storm closed in.
Ms. Moore had packed them into her car and was trying to leave Staten Island for Brooklyn, but the car stalled. Ms. Moore climbed out, holding one child in her arms and the other by the hand. The police said at the time that she lost her grip when she was slammed by water.
"I expressed to them as a father, as a parent, my heartbreak over what they went through," the president said.
Mr. Obama said that they were grief-stricken but that they wanted to thank those "who've been supportive to them," especially Lt. Kevin Gallagher of the Police Department, who the president said had "made a point of staying with them and doing everything he could so ultimately they knew what had happened with their boys."
"That's not in the job description of Lieutenant Gallagher," the president said. "He did that because that's what so many of our first responders do."
Mr. Obama had been expected to visit New York in the first days after the storm struck on Oct. 29, but Mr. Bloomberg asked him not to come, saying he worried that a presidential visit would be disruptive as the city took its first steps toward recovery. Mr. Obama toured the devastated New Jersey coast with Gov. Chris Christie, a visit that had political overtones, coming less than a week before what promised to be a close presidential election.
Some Staten Islanders expressed frustration with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and insurers, and others said Mr. Obama's visit did not settle questions that troubled them, like which kinds of insurance covered what.
"I'm still lost," said Joe Ambrosio Jr., an elevated-track inspector for New York City Transit whose house was flooded.
"It was a big show and tell. Obama came through, the mayor's over there, the governor's over there, but nobody's giving you the right answer."
Debbie Ingenito got a hug from Mr. Obama, and more.
Her husband, Joseph, had chopped the top off a tree that fell in their yard and turned it into a Christmas tree with ornaments scavenged from the rubble and lights powered by a donated generator.
Mr. Ingenito would not leave their house — he has become a one-man neighborhood watch, keeping an eye on the whole block from their unheated second floor — so Ms. Ingenito went to see the president by herself. He embraced her.
"I told him that my husband would like to be here, but he's back protecting the house," Ms. Ingenito said. "He said he understood. And then he hugged me a second time."
A Secret Service agent handed her official White House holiday tree ornaments from 2011 and 2012. But they did not go up on the Ingenitos' tree after the president left and Ms. Ingenito went home.
"No," she said, "they're inside, where they'll be safe."
Reporting was contributed by Danny Hakim, Raymond Hernandez, Christopher Maag and Vivian Yee.
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