U.S. & World

WASHINGTON (CBS) ― Top Department of Homeland Security officials were told about New Orleans' levee failures the day Hurricane Katrina roared ashore, former disaster chief Michael Brown said Friday, contradicting agency officials who said earlier they were unaware of the severity of the problems until the next day.

"I find it a little disingenuous," Brown, who at the time headed the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told a Senate oversight committee. "For them to claim that we didn't have awareness of it is just baloney."

Brown also told senators that decisions and policies by the parent Homeland Security Department doomed FEMA to "a path to failure" that led to the government's slow response to the storm. He said that because of a focus on terrorism, natural disasters "had become the stepchild of the Department of Homeland Security."

In an appearance before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee that blended an atmosphere of both cooperation and confrontation, Brown went far further than he had previously in blaming other elements of the Bush administration for the government's halting reaction to the massive storm.

The Aug. 29 maelstrom killed more than 1,300 people, displaced hundreds of thousands of others, and caused tens of billions in damage, including widespread destruction in New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities.

Brown, who quit under fire as chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency just days after the storm hit, is widely considered the public face of the government's sluggish response to Katrina. Brown was widely expected to start naming names of "who knew what the day Katrina hit," CBS News correspondent Susan Roberts reports.

Brown said FEMA's mission was marginalized when it was swallowed by the newly created Homeland Security agency.

"There was a cultural clash that didn't recognize the absolute inherent science of preparing for a disaster," he told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. "Any time you break that cycle ... you're doomed to failure."

He added: "The policies and decisions implemented by the DHS put FEMA on a path to failure."

Earlier, the chairwoman of the panel, Sen. Susan Collins, said that FEMA missed early warning signs that emergency response teams were unprepared to handle a catastrophic disaster like Hurricane Katrina.

A management audit prepared by Brown months before the Aug. 29 storm showed that the agency had a lack of adequate and consistent situational awareness to size up emergencies, and was unable to properly control inventory and track assets, she told fellow committee members. Collins said the audit also showed that FEMA misunderstood standard response procedures.

"Despite this study, key problems simply were not addressed and, as a result, opportunities to strengthen FEMA prior to Katrina were missed," she said.

Brown's appearance in front of the Senate investigative panel came as new documents reveal that 28 federal, state and local agencies, including the White House, reported levee or embankment failures on Aug. 29, according to a timeline of e-mails, situation updates and weather reports pieced together by Senate Democrats. The documents indicate the Bush administration knew as early as 8:30 a.m. Aug. 29 about levee failures that would ultimately lead to massive flooding of the city and its surrounding parishes.

That litany was at odds with the administration's contention that it didn't know the extent of the problem until much later. At the time, President Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Mr. Bush and his top aides were fully aware of the massive flooding, and less concerned whether it was caused by levee breaches, overtoppings or failed pumps, all three of which were being reported at the time.

"We knew there was flooding and that's why the No. 1 effort in those early hours was on search and rescue, and saving life and limb," Duffy said.

Democrats said the documents showed there was little excuse for the tardy federal response.

"The first communication came at 8:30 a.m.," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "So it is inexplicable to me how those responsible for the federal response could have woken up Tuesday morning unaware of this obviously catastrophic situation."

The first internal White House communication about levee failures came at 11:13 a.m. on Aug. 29 in a "Katrina Spot Report" by the White House Homeland Security Council, Roberts reports.

"Flooding is significant throughout the region and a levee in New Orleans has reportedly been breached sending 6-8 feet of water throughout the 9th ward area of the city," the internal report said.

Brown, now a private citizen, has said his Katrina-related communications with Mr. Bush and other top White House officials no longer fall under executive confidentiality protections, a possible signal that his testimony will assign blame elsewhere.

Brown quit FEMA on Sept. 12 after he was relived of his onsite command in the Gulf Coast, and left the federal payroll Nov. 2. He testified in front of a House investigation panel in September.

(© 2006 CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)