Digital Extra: The Station Fire

01:43 AM EDT on Wednesday, July 14, 2004

BY MARK ARSENAULT
Journal Staff Writer

Journal file photo The first-respdonders: Firefighters, police and medical personnel rescued, transported and treated about 230 patients, many of them critical -- "a monumental accomplishment."

PROVIDENCE -- The emergency system designed to manage Rhode Island's response to disaster failed when the need was greatest, during the fire at The Station nightclub, the deadliest ever on Rhode Island soil.

Emergency response plans are "badly out of date," and the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency, the intended "focal point" of disaster management, is, in practice, a money-starved afterthought of state government, according to a one-year study of Rhode Island's response to the West Warwick fire that took 100 lives.

Communication was repeatedly a problem the night of the fire:

Patients arrived unannounced at hospitals.

Firefighters, police and ambulances from different communities lacked the equipment to easily talk to each other.

A system to notify hospitals of a catastrophe by Nextel radio wasn't used.

Despite the overwhelming number of people dead and critically hurt, nobody called the state director of health, Patricia Nolan, who learned about the fire the next morning on the news.

Despite the problems and the poor disaster planning, the study -- done for the state by defense and homeland security consultant Titan Corp. -- praises the performance and innovation of the nearly 600 fire, police and emergency medical personnel who responded to the disaster, who made quick decisions in the midst of death and chaos, and who repeatedly improvised around problems.

"The successes to the response and recovery of the Station club fire can be attributed to the efforts of ordinary men and women performing in an extraordinary and dedicated fashion, often in spite of limited plans, systems and capabilities," said Grant C. Peterson, Titan vice president for homeland security planning and preparedness.

Before The Station burned down during a rock concert on Feb. 20, 2003, the state's readiness for disaster had suffered from good fortune: it had been a long time since Rhode Island needed to respond to catastrophe, Peterson said. This good fortune led to "levels of capability" tuned to the demands of "normal, day-to-day, business as usual," he said. "This tragic event was not business as usual."

GOVERNOR CARCIERI released The Station club fire "after-action report" to the public yesterday. He called the study "thorough, professional, probing."

The governor directed his department heads to review the recommendations that affect their agencies, and to report back to him within 30 days with plans to address the issues raised, he announced yesterday at a media event.

The governor will also host a summit on Sept. 30 to discuss the recommendations. The list of people to attend is not final, but will include, at minimum, departments and agencies that would have responsibilities during a disaster, said Jeff Neal, the governor's spokesman.

Some of the recommendations, such as new technology to improve radio communication, are sure to cost money. Carcieri pledged yesterday to spend more to better prepare the state for disaster. "If we need significantly more money, we'll do that," he said.

The year-long study is condensed into a report nearly an inch thick. It offers 377 recommendations for Rhode Island, many to improve disaster planning and communication during an emergency.

The Office for Domestic Preparedness, under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, paid for the study, which cost about $800,000, Peterson said.

A team from Titan conducted more than 115 interviews and "group debriefings" of about 200 people who were involved in responding to the disaster. Consultants reviewed documents, plans, policies, emergency logs and newspaper articles.

THE REPORT is heavily critical of the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency, which is "charged with protecting lives and property through mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. It publishes and maintains the all-hazard Rhode Island Emergency Operations Plan and requires that municipalities possess complementary plans," the report states.

During The Station fire, the agency -- headed by Maj. Gen. Reginald A. Centracchio, its director, and Albert A. Scappaticci, the executive director -- did not open its own emergency operations center, nor use the state's emergency mass-casualty plan, consultants reported.

The agency "has many dedicated and competent staff members . . . but dedication and hard work cannot overcome systemic flaws," Peterson said.

Carcieri pledged yesterday that Rhode Island will build a "more robust" Emergency Management Agency.

The report is also critical of the medical examiner's initial response. That office is headed by Dr. Elizabeth A. Laposata. "Despite early and repeated warnings that this was an event with significant fatalities, the [Office of the Medical Examiner] never marshaled the necessary investigative and transportation resources," the report states.

But the report compliments the medical examiner's efforts, with federal and volunteer assistance, to complete the identification of 96 people killed in the fire, in less than five days. "An average of 35 professionals worked in 12-hour, round-the-clock shifts until every deceased victim was accounted for and the family notified."

The owners of The Station, Jeffrey and Michael Derderian, are under indictment for manslaughter. Dan Biechele, the tour manager for the rock band Great White, who set off the fireworks that ignited the club, is also under indictment. A number of civil lawsuits are pending.

The study was designed to examine the fire through the eyes of the people who responded, though a group of crucial first responders is absent: West Warwick Fire Chief Charles Hall would not allow the consultants to speak directly to West Warwick firefighters who were at The Station.

TITAN CORP., based in San Diego, started its review of The Station fire response in June 2003. The study was originally expected to take six to nine months; it has been nearly 13 months. Peterson explained yesterday that Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch prohibited interviews with first responders for about 80 days, until an interview procedure could be agreed upon. Titan's "validation process" to confirm its facts and findings also took longer than expected, Peterson said.

The review was done at the urging of Governor Carcieri. The governor -- who was in Florida when the fire began late on Feb. 20 and who returned to Rhode Island the next morning -- has said that although he believed the response was good, an independent audit would help the state better prepare for another catastrophe.

The report commends Carcieri for making victim identification the top priority immediately after the fire; for personally keeping the relatives of the victims informed of the news; for directing the opening of the Family Resource Center, which provided assistance to fire victims and the families of those who had died; and for visiting the injured and attending funerals for the dead.

J. David Smith, Narragansett police chief and head of the Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association, said that all emergency responders should read Titan's recommendations. "But it's always easy to Monday-morning-quarterback a situation, too," he said. "I don't want lost in the message of the report that so many heroic things were done that night that undoubtedly saved so many lives.

"We will never reach a point where it's perfect, or we know we don't have to learn something or become better," Smith said.

AFTER THE Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the federal government paid for Arlington County, Va., to hire Titan Corp. to audit the county's emergency response to the attack on the Pentagon. That 200-plus page report on the 10-day rescue-and-recovery effort, with its 235 recommendations, was released in 2002.

Titan found that the overall Pentagon disaster response was successful. The report praised the leadership structure of the emergency responders and the management of mutual aid. But the Pentagon study recommended improvements in dispatch and communications, and the on-hand supplies of such items as batteries and breathing apparatus. Arlington created two staff jobs to review the recommendations and help fold the suggestions into the county's emergency plans.

Titan Corp. has recently had trouble with the Justice Department: the Washington Post reported three weeks ago that Lockheed Martin Corp. quit its effort to acquire Titan due to a federal investigation into whether Titan consultants bribed foreign officials to win contracts.

Carcieri said yesterday that he was unaware of the bribery investigation. "I don't know anything about it."

Titan has been sued by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of several Iraqi prisoners that accuse the contractor of conspiring with U.S. officials to abuse detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, for which Titan provided linguists, the Post reported on June 10.

With reports from staff writers Liz Anderson, Linda Borg, Michael Corkery and Edward Fitzpatrick.

DIGITAL EXTRAS: Read the report's summary of its findings, look back at coverage of The Station fire and its aftermath, view profiles of its victims and more, at:

http://projo.com/extra/2003/stationfire/