WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional investigators have learned a federal official's eyewitness account of the New Orleans flooding reached the Homeland Security Department the night before the Bush administration has said it learned of the disaster, the New York Times said on Thursday.
The newspaper said a Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman sent an e-mail at 9:27 p.m. on Monday, August 29, the day the levee broke in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, to the chief of staff of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. The e-mail said conditions "are far more serious than media reports are currently reflecting.
"Finding extensive flooding and more stranded people than they had thought -- also a number of fires," the e-mail said, according to The Times.
White House officials have confirmed to congressional investigators that the report of the levee break arrived there at midnight, the paper said, adding Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, "acknowledged as much in an interview this week, though he said it was surrounded with conflicting reports."
Furthermore, Michael Brown, director of FEMA until he resigned under pressure on September 12, told the Times on Thursday that, learning of this eyewitness report, he notified the White House of the news that night. ...
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