Ellington

The Clarion-Ledger is reporting:

Although President Bush said no one could foresee Hurricane Katrina's destruction, documents show the White House received detailed warnings about the storm's likely impact days before the hurricane hit. Several lawmakers lashed out at the Bush administration on Tuesday for failing to heed the warnings of massive flooding, breached levees and loss of life.

"(Bush) has every reason to be dissatisfied with the hurricane response and we have every reason to want more information," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

The committee on Tuesday released documents that showed the Department of Homeland Security's National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center, or NISAC, delivered an assessment of Katrina's impact on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast about six hours before the storm hit.

NISAC began work on the analysis on Aug. 27, two days before Katrina made landfall in Mississippi and Louisiana. It said "the potential for severe storm surge to overwhelm Lake Ponchartrain levees is the greatest concern for New Orleans."