PROVIDENCE -- A consulting firm that studied the emergency response to the 9/11 Pentagon attack today begins an audit of Rhode Island's response to The Station nightclub disaster, the deadliest fire in state history.
The audit by San Diego-based Titan Systems Corp. will seek to identify elements of the emergency response that went well, those that proved difficult -- and why, said Grant Peterson, Titan vice president for homeland security and domestic preparedness.
The report will also develop recommendations to better prepare the state for some other disaster in the future, he said.
The Feb. 20 West Warwick nightclub fire killed 100 people and injured about 200. It taxed emergency responders and hospitals around the state.
Governor Carcieri has said that Rhode Island responded well to the disaster, but asked the federal government for help auditing the state's response to see what emergency planners and responders could learn.
The study will be financed by the Office for Domestic Preparedness, under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Peterson said last evening that he is unsure how much the audit will cost; that depends on how readily Titan can get the information it needs.
That information will come mostly from individual and small-group interviews with the emergency personnel who worked on the fire. "We're going to write the report through the eyes of the responders," Peterson said. The report's conclusions and recommendations will come from those responders, he said. "Their opinions are the ones that count."
The study is expected to take at least four months, Peterson said.
Peterson arrived in Rhode Island last evening. His firm will deploy a team of about seven "senior subject matter experts" to develop the Rhode Island audit, he said.
The federal government paid for Arlington County, Va., to hire Titan after the terrorist attack on the Pentagon. Titan last July produced a 200-plus page report on the 10-day rescue-and-recovery effort at the Pentagon, according to a statement Arlington County issued when the report was released.
Titan found that the overall disaster response was successful at the Pentagon. The report praises the leadership structure of the emergency-response effort, the management of mutual aid, and the adherence to the county's emergency-management plan.
The report recommended improvements in several areas, including dispatching and communications. Radio channels were oversaturated after the attack, for example. Also, the on-hand supplies of critical items, such as batteries and breathing apparatus, were not sufficient for a long-term effort, according to Arlington County.
Arlington created two staff positions to review the report's 235 recommendations, and to help incorporate the suggestions into the county's emergency plans.
