Digital Extra: The Station Fire

The Emergency Management Agency had suggested the inquiry to the governor who, in turn, contacted the federal Department of Homeland Security.

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, July 16, 2004

BY PAUL EDWARD PARKER
Journal Staff Writer

The state Emergency Management Agency, which was sharply criticized in a report this week for its handling of the Station fire last year, was the first to suggest that an outside agency conduct such a study.

A spokesman for the consultant who reviewed the state's response to the deadliest fire ever on its soil said the EMA brought its suggestion to Governor Carcieri, who then contacted the federal Department of Homeland Security for assistance. A subdivision of Homeland Security then commissioned Titan Corp. to do the study.

"My customer is Homeland Security's Office of Domestic Preparedness," Titan Vice President Grant C. Peterson said yesterday.

Rhode Island officials had no say in Titan's choice to do the study, and the state did not pay any of the $800,000 for the report, according to Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal.

Peterson said Titan was chosen to do the report because it has a standing contract with Homeland Security and because it had done a similar review of the response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon.

As Rhode Islanders have had a chance to digest the report and its criticisms of state agencies, especially the EMA and the medical examiner's office, it has also become apparent that some agencies were omitted from the report.

"There's probably folks who could say, 'Hey, I had a role in this, and I didn't get profiled,' and I couldn't argue with that," Peterson said. Titan tried not to critique investigative agencies, such as the state fire marshal's office or the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to avoid interference in their work. "Some of that may have been possibly overly conservative on our part."

Peterson said his company drew a line with the medical examiner, although that office has a role that is, at least in part, investigatory. "I think it's pretty clear they're responders."

Peterson said the report's writers reviewed its contents with people mentioned in it, who then could offer corrections and clarifications before it became public. However, not every state agency in the report had a formal chance to review it beforehand.

"We had learned from a federal agency in April that they had viewed an advance copy of the report," Deputy Attorney General Gerald J. Coyne said. He then contacted Andrew Hodgkin, a lawyer for Carcieri, who allowed him to look at the report at the State House. Coyne said it was not a formal review at which the attorney general could offer comments on the contents, but simply a "courtesy."

"My understanding in April was that the report was essentially done," said Coyne, who especially checked the section about law-enforcement agencies for accuracy. "My first concern was, was there anything in the report that would impact the prosecution."

Peterson said that none of the report's six major sections is devoted to the attorney general's office, so the report authors did not review it with the attorney general. As for state agencies reviewing the report, Peterson said copies were given to the governor's office. "The governor decided who was going to look at this from an agency standpoint."

Peterson said a draft of the report, in a three-ring binder, was assembled in mid-February. By April or May, a draft paperback book had been assembled and circulated for review. Most of the report was in its final form by then, though photographs and formatting were changed later.

Within the last month, about 65 copies of the report that was handed out Tuesday were printed. They were marked "ADVANCE COPY" on the cover. Peterson said the final report will be delivered to Homeland Security electronically. He said he does not know whether the department will publish a traditional book or simply make the report available online.

The report was only made public this week after a Providence Journal reporter contacted Titan and learned it was done. The reporter then contacted the governor's office, which called Titan and arranged for a Tuesday news conference to release the report.

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/