U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., addressed the 23rd annual meeting of the Buckhead Coalition Wednesday, discussing ways Atlanta and New Orleans can and should continue to grow.

Coalition President Sam Massell introduced Landrieu as “one of the most influential and also one of the most bipartisan [Congress members].”

Fittingly, Landrieu opened her remarks by praising the two Georgia senators, both Republicans.

“I do my best to work in a regional manner … and Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss really are great to work with,” said the New Orleans native, who was first elected to the Senate in 1996 and re-elected in 2002 and 2008. “The two guys who represent you in the U.S. Senate have always been willing to step up and work not only for Georgia but Louisiana as well.”

Landrieu — who chairs the Senate Small Business Committee and the Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security — said the relationship between the two states was further made clear in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“Some of you helped build buildings or [conducted business there] or have family there,” she said. “The point is to thank you. Our city is rising out of the ashes and the slop of the flood.”

Landrieu said the city lost 80 percent of its residential neighborhoods and 100 of its 146 schools. Because the level of devastation required New Orleans leaders to rebuild from the ground up, Landrieu said lessons are emerging about the future of city governance. 

“There is not a textbook to say how to rebuild a city,” she said. But, even before the flood, New Orleans schools were “failing, failing, failing,” with a 50 percent drop-out rate.

Now, the city has adopted as public charter model, allowing more community involvement and alleviating the pressure some area parents felt to send their children to private school, Landrieu said.

“We have to think in America of a better way to do public education,” she said.

Landrieu arrived in Atlanta immediately preceding the meeting at 103 West in Buckhead and flew out just after, but said she was willing to make the trip because of her long-standing friendship with Massell, who served as Atlanta mayor when her father, Moon, was mayor of New Orleans in the early 1970s.

“When I received the invitation — it’s unusual to get an invitation outside of your state — I wasn’t going to accept it, but then my father called,” she said.

Landrieu said she was initially worried she would miss a vote in the Senate, but a Republican caucus retreat alleviated that fear.

“Sam is a longtime friend of our family,” she said. “To see him at this stage of his life and this Buckhead Community, it really is an honor.”