Digital Extra: The Station Fire

01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, July 15, 2004

BY EDWARD FITZPATRICK
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Leaders of the state Emergency Management Agency yesterday defended the agency's performance on the night of The Station fire, rebutting some of the major points in a consultant's blistering critique but echoing the call for more money, staff and equipment.

On Tuesday, Governor Carcieri unveiled the results of a one-year, $800,000 study of Rhode Island's response to the West Warwick nightclub fire, which claimed 100 lives. In its report, defense and homeland security consultant Titan Corp. concluded that, "The statewide Rhode Island emergency management system failed to function effectively."

Yesterday, Maj. Gen. Reginald A. Centracchio, the Emergency Management Agency director and commanding general of the Rhode Island National Guard, said he welcomed the report and its focus on the need to better support the agency.

But, Centracchio said, "I don't subscribe [to the idea] that we failed."

"I do believe it could have been done better, perhaps, given additional resources, but I do believe we did satisfy the incident command system and we did respond in accordance with our state strategy," Centracchio said. "The people, in my opinion, responded in a most outstanding way within the resource capabilities that we had."

"Could things have been done better? Of course they could have been," said Albert A. Scappaticci, the agency's executive director. "But that fast-moving train that night -- I was there at 1:30 [a.m.] and I saw the death and destruction -- it was quick reaction we had to do, and I thought we did OK. I'd like to think the town of West Warwick was pleased with what we did, too."

The Titan report faulted the Emergency Management Agency with failing to "serve as the management focal point," saying, "there was no single individual to whom the governor could turn for information."

But Centracchio said he was that point person. After Carcieri flew back to Rhode Island from Florida, the general said he and Scappaticci were by the governor's side throughout the operation, providing regular situation reports.

"So the other point I want to absolutely refute is when they said the governor did not have a single point of contact, that's not so," Centracchio said. "That was a wrong observation."

The consultant said there was confusion about who was in charge of the overall operation that night, and the report described Scappaticci as deferring to West Warwick when it was clear the scope of the tragedy was beyond the town's management capacity.

But Scappaticci said, "It's important to realize that the functions and very purpose of EMA is a support function." In this case, the commander was West Warwick Fire Chief Charles Hall, he said. "The EMA is there in a supportive role and would very seldom -- rarely -- be in a position of command and control on a scene," he said.

Centracchio said the agency's responsibility is to make the resources of state agencies available to the incident commander. The first thing West Warwick needed was body bags and communications equipment, and the agency provided body bags and 40 Nextel radios, he said. The report said the radios went unused.

Centracchio said another issue was that people were showing up at the scene looking for relatives, so the agency set up the victim information hot line and worked with the Red Cross on a family assistance center at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Warwick.

The report said the agency did not activate its emergency operations center, in Cranston "during this event." But Scappaticci said a staff member began setting up the emergency operations center at 2:30 a.m. and the room was "operational" by 5 a.m., with people answering the victim information hot line.

"It's a matter of what they mean by 'not activated,' " Scappaticci said. "I know it was activated because we had our person down there opening it up and setting it up." In the first week, the hot line received 14,000 calls, he said. "So if that isn't open and operational, I'm not sure what is."

The report said a mobile command post with a mass casualty team could have helped that night, but "with limited resources, RIEMA did not have a qualified rapid response team and its mobile command post, a 1988 Ford box truck badly in need of replacement, was not deployed."

Scappaticci said there was no point in using the old Ford because it lacked the communication equipment that would allow departments from different towns to talk with one another. But he said the agency will soon open bids for a new mobile command post that will have that capability.

And in the past few months, the Rhode Island Tactical Emergency Radio Network has gone online, allowing the agency to notify all police and fire departments of an emergency or disaster with the press of a button, Scappaticci said.

Centracchio said, "The report would have one believe that we are in the same configuration as of The Station fire. That is not the case. We have made tremendous improvements across the board."

The report bolsters the case for additional investments, Centracchio said, but the agency had identified those needs prior to Y2K and after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"I welcome this," Centracchio said. "But I welcome it more as a reaffirmation of areas that we had already identified. So as much as the report is new, the findings and recommendations are not new."

Improved communications is the top priority, followed by the need for more personnel, he said. The report said the agency's staff had dwindled from 29 in 1974 to 13 on the night of the fire, but had since gained 5 positions.

Centracchio said the agency asked the state for five new full-time positions this year and received two in the current budget. The agency used federal money to hire three contract employees and would like state money to make them full-time employees, he said.

The report said many emergency-planning documents were outdated, but Centracchio said the agency will have all emergency operations plans updated by October.

The report questioned whether the agency should remain under the National Guard umbrella, but Centracchio said, "The greater question is whether, in fact, EMA is properly resourced. In my opinion, it really doesn't matter where it is. If the governor decides that he wants to move it elsewhere, then we will support that."

DIGITAL EXTRA: Recap Journal coverage of the report assessing The Station fire response, and look back at a special multimedia report on the fire and its aftermath, at:

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