Former federal disaster chief Michael Brown testified Friday that he notified top White House and Homeland Security officials on the day that Hurricane Katrina roared ashore that "we were realizing our worst nightmare" and that New Orleans was seriously flooding.
The storm slammed into New Orleans and the Gulf coast on the morning of Monday, Aug. 29. Brown said he spoke by phone to a top White House official — he said he believed it was Joe Hagin — "on at least two occasions on that day to inform him of what was going on."
Hagin was with the president, who was vacationing on his ranch in Crawford, Texas, at the time, while Brown was in Baton Rouge
"I think I told him that we were realizing our worst nightmare, that everything we had planned about, worried about, that FEMA, frankly, had worried about for 10 years was coming true," Brown said. He said he made similar comments in an e-mail message to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card.
He insisted he provided information to White House and Homeland Security officials the day of the storm. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has said he did not know the levees were breached until the following day
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