A defining
event in R.I. history
"Rhode Island is literally at a standstill."
-- Gov. J. Joseph Garrahy, Feb. 6, 1978
By BRIAN C.
JONES
Journal-Bulletin Staff Writer
M. Charles Bakst: Garrahy, successors on crisis leadership
02/02/2003
This is Joe Garrahy's time.
For Rhode Islanders who remember the Blizzard of 1978, it's always his time.
In a crisis, the Democratic governor sported a red-and-green plaid flannel shirt and became a reassuring source of information and direction.
He was, during that run, Mr. Television. Rhode Islanders who watched and admired him included the four men who'd succeed him in the State House.
Ed DiPrete, Bruce Sundlun, Linc Almond and Don Carcieri also have stories from the blizzard, and each man would eventually be tested in office. Garrahy's leadership skills during the blizzard would set a standard by which to measure them.
He is 72 now, and, as the blizzard's 25th anniversary nears, people still regularly approach him, ask about the shirt -- now at the Rhode Island Historical Society -- and thank him.
And consider this: Melissa Ahearn, 22, who grew up on Long Island and has been in the state only two years, wasn't even alive in 1978. But this waitress at Venda Ravioli was beside herself with excitement when she had Garrahy as a customer for lunch last Tuesday.
"They've been telling me all morning about the Blizzard of '78," she said of her coworkers. One of them was stunned to see Garrahy in the restaurant and pointed him out; Ahearn gushed, "I'm like, 'Oh wow!' "
Retired from the consulting business, Garrahy serves on corporate boards and is active in charities. You've seen him in a public-service TV spot wearing a different flannel shirt and talking up the Salvation Army's Good Neighbor Energy Fund.
Garrahy and his wife, Margherite, have long lived in Narragansett and now spend much time in North Palm Beach. He'll be in Florida during Thursday's blizzard anniversary.
He lists his occupation as "grandfather." There are 10 grandchildren. He has a double pleasure: A grandparent can enjoy the kiddies without having the responsibility for raising them; a former governor continues to bask in the prestige of the office without having the burden of still running the state.
But when Garrahy did run the state during the blizzard, he had the right touch.
He said last week, "When you get to be governor and you get into a leadership position, people kind of look up to you. They look for leadership, they look for calm, and they look for guidance. . . . I suppose that's the ingredients of leadership: having people feel confident that you're doing a good job and that you're doing what's right."
He said there'd been no time to feel sorry for himself and ask, "What am I doing here?" Instead, he asserted, "You think about what you have to do." That included bringing in federal troops, ordering equipment around, clearing Route 95, reopening T.F. Green Airport, getting fuel delivered, ensuring that dialysis patients got treatment, and going on TV to report progress and counsel patience.
Dave Duffy, a veteran public-relations executive, says:
"Everyone was home, and when everyone is home they're watching television, and television had nothing else to cover but the blizzard . . . People loved it, because it was such a fascinating story that affected everyone. They looked to him as being in charge."
Garrahy, who had been in Newport and then at his Providence home near the North Providence line, made it to the State House after a well-chronicled hours-long ride in a National Guard truck.
And where were the men who would succeed him?
Republican DiPrete, a Cranston councilman, was in the insurance business on Reservoir Avenue. He remembers driving to his Wilbur Avenue home at about 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 6 and hearing an "astounding" weather forecast saying the depth of the snow would be measured in feet instead of inches. He remembers that when it was still coming down in sheets, piling 2 feet or more on the deck of the house, he told his son, Tom, then 10, "When you're older, you're going to hear about the Great Blizzard of '78, mark my words."
The future governor became stranded at home. But unlike many Rhode Islanders, who couldn't get fresh milk, DiPrete and his neighbors were in luck: down the street was a dairy. "They actually had cows. The milk was pasteurized on the premises . . . And within the building was a small retail store."
During his 1985-1991 State House tenure, DiPrete would deal with a hurricane, an oil spill, and assorted snowstorms.
He was hands-on, relishing the chance to take command. He once held six news conferences in one day.
He said last week, "It's important to let the public know, as Garrahy did, as I tried to do, that the governor wasn't in a bunker 10 feet underground waiting for the storm to pass. The governor was there, actively involved, was outside looking at what was going on and inside talking to meteorologists . . ."
Of course, DiPrete would later be jailed for corruption. Some folks might say, "Yeah, he was great at snowstorms and oil spills; it's too bad he was such a jerk about everything else."
DiPrete says he disagrees, "and I'll just let it go at that."
In 1978, Democrat Bruce Sundlun was president of the Outlet Co., which owned a large downtown department store and Channel 10. As the Feb. 6 snow bore down, his secretary and another woman told him they'd tried to get home but had run into one obstacle after another. "I said, 'Oh, you don't know how to drive. I'll get you out.' " But he fared no better and they returned to the building.
Now strangers began flocking to the Outlet to take refuge. Sundlun says the company actually urged people to come in: "We had a restaurant. We had a fourth floor where there was a big hall. We had mattresses, blankets, television sets."
Hundreds of folks settled in. Sundlun puts the number at 1,000; a newspaper story suggests it was less. In any event, Sundlun relishes telling how he tapped military veterans to help organize operations. And he says he told the crowd, "There's about $30 million worth of inventory in this building and when you all leave a few days from now we're going to know whether you're honest or dishonest." He reports, "We didn't lose an ashtray."
During his 1991-95 governorship, Sundlun had to respond to several crises, including the credit union collapse, a massive budget deficit, and the near death in an accident of his wife Marjorie. He focused like a laser beam, worked round the clock, and often flew in the face of contrversy. The lawyer-businessman-pilot said he'd been trained to act quickly.
Last week, in discussing crisis leadership, Sundlun said, "You've got to be willing to make decisions. And you've got to be willing to order people to do things. You can't debate the issue. If it's a crisis, an emergency, you've got to act. If the act doesn't succeed, you've got to change, do some other act. But you've got to do it."
Garrahy agrees: "When you've got a state of emergency on, a governor has tremendous power and you've got to exercise it." For example, he notes, there were reports during blizzard week of profiteering in sales of such items as bread, milk and prescription drugs. He ordered a rollback in prices to their levels of the previous Saturday.
On the afternoon of Feb. 6, 1978, Republican U.S. Attorney Linc Almond left his Providence office and spent nearly three hours driving home to Lincoln, and for the rest of the week stayed put. "We just had a great time," he says. He recalls doing a lot of walking, joining neighbors in shoveling out an elderly resident, and so on.
The most notable disaster during Almond's 1995-2003 governorship was a 1996 oil spill. He recalls riding in a helicopter and seeing an oil sheen stretching from South Kingstown to Block Island. "You had a sinking feeling when you saw that, because the wind had shifted and was blowing the oil out all over the place."
If you listen to the governors, just about any life experience can be preparation for disaster control. Garrahy points to having been an Eagle Scout and a member of the Air Force. Almond had to deal with snowstorms as Lincoln town administrator. "Also, when you're U.S. Attorney, you have all kinds of issues regarding surveillances and wiretaps. You're always prepared for something. You always have to have a contingency plan."
Almond's big personal crisis as governor was prostate cancer. He performed a public service with a news conference saying he'd been diagnosed; when he went for surgery he kept everyone informed. He said last week that he wanted to reassure the public, demystify the disease, and encourage men to be tested.
In 1978, Republican Don Carcieri worked for Old Stone Bank in Providence. At 3 p.m. on Feb. 6, he left the office with fellow banker and East Greenwich neighbor Bob Holbrook and headed for home. In Holbrook's Volkswagen Beetle, they snaked their way through abandoned cars down Route 95.
Carcieri says, "You'd make progress and then you'd stop, so you knew someone at the head of the line was stuck. You'd get out of your car -- I'll never forget this as long as I live -- the snow was almost horizontal. We would walk leaning into the wind -- everyone was doing the same thing -- and get to the car that had stopped, then push it, get it going, and then you'd run . . . to get back in your car to get out of the cold. But there was no heat in the Volkswagen bug . . . We must have done that six times."
It was 9 p.m. or later by the time Carcieri got home. In those pre-cell phone days, he says, his family had had no idea of his whereabouts. "Sue and the kids were beside themselves."
As a brand-new governor, Carcieri has not yet had to cope with a natural disaster. His top problem is a looming budget deficit. In discussing crisis leadership, he cites the Garrahy model of visibility/communication/reassurance. "That's what I think people appreciate," Carcieri says. "They know that in those cases the governor is there. They might not always agree with every decision, but somebody is there, they're on top of it."
Incidentally, Carcieri says a governor who was at a seminar for new governors "guaranteed" that the new chief execs would face an emergency within six months of taking office.
I asked Carcieri if he wakes up each morning and wonders, "Will this be the day?" Not exactly. But the energetic new governor says there will come a point where he'll take a few days off. "That's probably when you should be alert," he chuckled. "That's when something will happen!"
M. Charles Bakst, The Journal's political columnist, can be reached by e-mail at mbakst@projo.com
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