A WARNING that a bomb would explode in Atlanta's Centennial Park never reached authorities on the scene because an emergency operator did not know the address of the park and the telephone lines to a police control centre were engaged.
Valuable minutes ticked away as the operator called the police command centre three times and struggled to find out the address required by her computer before it would transmit the warning to a police dispatcher.
One of the most embarrassing questions facing Atlanta officials following last month's bombing that killed two people and injured more than a 100 was why the warning call received 22 minutes before the blast never reached Centennial Park.
Authorities at the park independently began clearing the area around the bomb after they were alerted by Mr Richard Jewell, the security guard who later became the prime suspect in the investigation.
The caller who telephoned 911 at 12.58 a.m. on July 27th, only said: "There is a bomb in Centennial Park. You have 30 minutes."
Atlanta's senior police claim the warning was handled according to a protocol for dealing with bomb warnings. However a recently released police chronology recounts an almost farcical sequence did events that the transmission of the warning by at least 10 minutes.
Included in the document is the following exchange between the operator and a police dispatcher:
Operator: "You know the address of Centennial Park?"
Dispatcher: "Girl, don't ask me to lie to you."
Operator: "I tried to call A.C.C. (the Atlanta Police Department's command centre), but ain't nobody answering the phone...But I just got this man talking about there's a bomb set to go off in 30 minutes in Centennial Park."
Dispatcher: "Oh, Lord, child. One minute, one minute . . . Uh OK, wait a minute. You put it in, and it won't go in?"
Operator: "No, unless I'm spelling Centennial wrong. How are we spelling Centennial?"
On her second attempt to call the Atlanta police command centre, the operator got a bad line and was told to call back. When she finally got through, an unidentified official at the centre told her he did not have an address for the park, adding: "What y'all think I am."
Reports yesterday that the FBI is considering apologising to the security guard if it fails to link him to the bombing soon have been denied.