'You will not be abandoned,' Obama tells Gulf Coast

President Barack Obama told the people of the US Gulf Coast yesterday they would not be "abandoned," in his most impassioned remarks yet on the United States' worst-ever oil spill, after arriving in Louisiana yesterday to view the oil spill response.

"To the people of the Gulf Coast, I know you've weathered your fair share of trials and tragedy," Mr Obama said, in a reference to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 which triggered a botched government response.

"I know there have been times where you have wondered if you're being asked to face them alone," Mr Obama said on a barrier island off Louisiana during his second tour of disaster hit-areas.

"I'm here to tell you that you're not alone.

"You will not be abandoned. You will not be left behind. The cameras at some point may leave. The media may get tired of the story. But we will not," he said.

"We are on your side, and we will see this through. We're going to keep at this every day until the leak is stopped, until this coastline is clean, and your communities are made whole again.

"That's my promise to you. And that is a promise on behalf of a nation. It is one that we will keep."

Meanwhile, Mr Obama ordered a tripling of manpower in coastal regions hit by the Gulf oil slick or where the toxic crude was expected to imminently come ashore.

Mr Obama said he had ordered Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and US Coast Guard chief Admiral Thad Allen to "triple the manpower in places where oil has hit the shore or is within 24 hours of impact."

The President said the move would allow the government to intensify what was already a "historic" response to the disaster sparked more than a month ago after an explosion aboard a BP-operated oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.