Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

President Barack Obama, center, meets with local residents during his tour of the Bridgewood neighborhood in LaPlace, La., in Saint John the Baptist Parish, as he tours the area to survey the ongoing response and recovery efforts to Hurricane Isaac on Monday.

NEW ORLEANS, La. – At the end of a four-day trip filled with campaign events, President Barack Obama put politics aside to visit a Louisiana town hit by Hurricane Isaac and talk with local officials about the recovery effort.

In brief remarks after touring part of the town of LaPlace in St. John the Baptist Parish, the president said he was impressed by the resiliency of the residents.

“There is enormous faith here, enormous strength here you can see it in these families,” he said. “They were just devastated a few days ago and they're already smiling and laughing,” he said.

Local reports say St. John the Baptist Parish experienced up to 18 inches of floodwater from the hurricane, an unprecedented level of flooding for the parish, according to an administration official.

Before his tour of the neighborhood, the president was briefed by local parish officials about the situation in the area and noted that the biggest concern was helping those who had been displaced.

“Obviously, right now we’re still in recovery mode,” he said.

Obama was accompanied by Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who met him at the airport alongside a bipartisan group that included New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Sens. Mary Landrieu and David Vitter, Reps. Cedric Richmond and Jeff Landry and FEMA administrator Craig Fugate.

Thanking the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Obama subtly referred to the recovery efforts to mitigate the damage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 under former President George W. Bush, which were widely viewed as a failure.

“In the past we sometimes haven’t seen the kind of coordination needed for these kinds of disasters,” Obama said.

But he also emphasized that this type of natural disaster transcends political labels.

“When disasters like this happen we set aside whatever petty disagreements we might have,” Obama said. “Nobody’s a Democrat or a Republican.”

The president returns to Washington, D.C. on Monday evening. He heads Tuesday to Norfolk, Va. for a campaign event.

Brian Snyder / REUTERS

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, left, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, center, talk with people at an ice and water distribution point while touring damage from Hurricane Isaac in Jean Lafitte, La., on Friday.

KENNER, La. -- With the formal nominating process of the Republican convention behind him, Mitt Romney stepped off the campaign trail for several hours Friday afternoon to tour storm-damaged neighborhoods and meet with local officials in hurricane-battered southern Louisiana.

On Friday morning, the Romney campaign scrapped plans for an afternoon Romney-Ryan rally in Virginia, sending Ryan alone after an event in Florida and diverting Romney, on his new campaign plane, to Jefferson Parish, south of New Orleans.

On the ground, Romney met with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Sen. David Vitter, both Republicans, to tour the area, which was hit hard this week by Hurricane Isaac, and to meet with first responders.

"You and I have talked several times. You said you wanted to support the folks, wanted to make sure they had everything they needed," Jindal told Romney when the group convened along the highway. "Appreciate you being here."

Romney said the visit, which lasted several hours, was meant as an opportunity to hear from residents and to bring attention to their plight, and his campaign said Romney attempted to cause minimal disruption to the recovery effort here.

“I’m here to learn and obviously to draw some attention to what’s going here,” Romney told Jindal. “So that people around the country know that people down here need help.”

Isaac outages keep heat on Louisiana; twister alerts inland

Romney spoke with a handful of residents here in this heavily Republican state, which isn’t expected to be competitive in November.

“I thought he’d be more like a politician, but it was more understanding and caring,”  42-year old Jodie Chiarello, who spoke with Romney outside the post office in Jean Lafitte post office said. “He was caring,” she said, adding that she would “probably” vote for him.

A senior Romney campaign adviser said the campaign did not take into account when President Barack Obama might visit the New Orleans area, saying the trip was not meant as a political exercise and dismissing any suggestion that visiting before the president would be inappropriate.

"There have been concerns about being disruptive of the recovery. I mean I think that is why we are going with a smaller group now and why we [are] deferring to the governors," strategist Stuart Stevens told reporters, who were split into a smaller pool to keep the traveling group small. "I'm sure that’s a consideration. You don't want to disrupt things."

After the Romney campaign announced the trip, the White House advised reporters that the president would cancel a campaign event and travel here on Monday.