WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government had advance warning of the danger and potential damage from Hurricane Katrina before the storm hit, newly released documents show.
Despite early warnings, plans to evacuate people from New Orleans in the approach of a catastrophic storm were only 10 percent complete a month before the devestating hurricane that accounted for more than 1,100 deaths.
"If you think soup lines in the Depression were long, wait till you see lines" at collection points in New Orleans, Transportation Department regional emergency officer Don Day said at a July 29 briefing with federal and state authorities.
"We're at less than 10 percent done with this ... planning when you consider the buses and the people," Day said at the briefing, according to notes taken by contractors Innovative Emergency Management Inc. of Baton Rouge...
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A Homeland Security Department report submitted to the White House at 1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, hours before the storm hit, said, "Any storm rated Category 4 or greater will likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching."
The internal department documents, which were forwarded to the White House, contradict statements by President Bush and the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, that no one expected the storm protection system in New Orleans to be breached.
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," Mr. Bush said in a television interview on Sept. 1. "Now we're having to deal with it, and will."
Other documents to be released Tuesday show that the weekend before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, Homeland Security Department officials predicted that its impact would be worse than a doomsday-like emergency planning exercise conducted in Louisiana in July 2004.
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1 comment:
Good blog here. We must be the voice of justice in a time of a cowed media.
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