Documents obtained by The Washington Post reveal, according to the newspaper, that in the 48 hours before Hurricane Katrina hit last August, the White House "received detailed warnings about the storm's likely impact, including eerily prescient predictions of breached levees, massive flooding, and major losses of life and property."
The 41-page assessment by the Department of Homeland Security's National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC) was delivered by e-mail to the White House's "situation room" in the early hours of Aug. 29, the day the storm hit, according to an e-mail cover sheet.The NISAC paper warned that a storm of Katrina's size would "likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching" and noted the potential for levee failures along Lake Pontchartrain. "It predicted economic losses in the tens of billions of dollars, including damage to public utilities and industry that would take years to fully repair," writes Washington Post reporter Joby Warrick in the Tuesday paper. "Initial response and rescue operations would be hampered by disruption of telecommunications networks and the loss of power to fire, police and emergency workers, it said.
