EVANS

HANNA

MESSIER

WARREN

PROVIDENCE — Oh, the weather outside was frightful on Dec. 13, 2007.

But not as frightful as the lackadaisical response by city and state officials, as some people see it, when a modest snowstorm caused widespread traffic gridlock in the Providence metropolitan area in the afternoon and evening and stranded hundreds of young schoolchildren on buses for many hours.

As an investigative commission put it, “near anarchy reigned in the city’s streets,” with motorists angrily confronting one another and at least 68 bus, car and truck accidents reported. While all this was going on, key officials went home or tended to other business, apparently oblivious to how matters had gotten out of hand.

The last nine Providence schoolchildren to have been stranded — at the school bus yard — were not taken home by the police until 11:20 p.m., according to the commission.

History calls it the December Debacle, and the anniversary is Saturday.

Officials say that the city and the state are much more ready for a serious snowstorm in the middle of a work and school day than they were a year ago.

As the result of preparation, practice and some enhanced capabilities, the communications and coordination that were lacking will be on display the next time a significant snowstorm arrives at midday, they promise.

“I think we are better prepared,” Mayor David N. Cicilline said yesterday. “I think we learned a number of lessons.”

Said Lt. Gov. Elizabeth H. Roberts, chairwoman of the Rhode Island Emergency Management Advisory Council, “…Nothing like that storm should happen again.”

Among the steps that have been or will be taken:

•The Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency has agreed to be more proactive before and during bad weather. Maj. Gen. Robert T. Bray, state adjutant general, who oversees the agency, insists that it continues to be a coordinating agency and not a first-response agency, however.

•Providence has formally adopted a more disciplined and, perhaps, more aggressive approach to calling off school, declaring a parking ban and towing parked vehicles to make way for plow trucks.

•The state police and the state Department of Transportation now plan to have seven heavy-duty wreckers posted at certain locations when a significant snowstorm is coming in, with 10 vehicle-dropoff points identified, including the Knight campus of the Community College of Rhode Island in Warwick. They will be teamed with state police cruisers and sand and plow trucks to remove traffic clots on the major highways and ramps.

•Providence will post police at chokepoints.

Regarding the imposition of a parking ban, Peter T. Gaynor, Providence director of emergency management, said, “We’ll probably do it earlier than we have in the past. … when there is no snow on the ground.”

Gaynor said a culture of urgency has been created in city government, as had been demanded by the investigative commission, appointed by City Council President Peter S. Mancini, which did an autopsy of the city’s performance in the December Debacle. It issued a report entitled Vital Lessons, which contained 37 recommendations.

Gaynor said the Cicilline administration has fulfilled 25 of the 37 recommendations and partially fulfilled 6. The rest are unresolved.

The December Debacle was embarrassing for Governor Carcieri, who was out of the country on a trip to the Mideast and decided in a satellite telephone conversation with his chief of staff that it was not necessary to open the Rhode Island Emergency Operations Center in Cranston.

And it was especially embarrassing for Cicilline, who accepted responsibility for the problems. Cicilline, who endured harsh criticism when his administration lost control of an unusually prolonged snowstorm in 2003, has labored to project an image that his city is professionally managed.

Post-debacle, the state and city directors of emergency management, Robert J. Warren for the state and Leo Messier for the city, were fired; the administration of beleaguered Superintendent of Schools Donnie Evans was damaged irretrievably, and Deputy Schools Supt. Tomas Hanna was punished with a one-month suspension.

In taking its more proactive posture, the state Emergency Management Agency has beefed up its Web-based information-sharing program with local authorities so that it is kept well-informed of any problems that may overwhelm a locality.

“We do have greater situational awareness,” said Bray, who co-authored a report in which he admitted that the state and localities had failed to keep the public abreast of what was going on before and during the snowstorm. The agency now says it is more likely to open its emergency operations center in adverse weather.

But preparedness is the duty of each citizen, the general emphasized.

“We don’t want the public to get the impression that we can solve all problems,” he said.

The city and the state are now taking advantage, too, of blast e-mail systems such as the one maintained by the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce to stay in touch with 4,500 business leaders. Those leaders are being asked to cooperate in bad weather by making gradual delayed openings of their workplaces or staggering early closings in order to minimize the number of cars that might otherwise all hit the road at once and interfere with the work of the snowplows.

The changes made by Providence city government have been as fundamental as an upgrade of the School Department’s telephone system so that more than three people can participate in a conference call and as unusual as the acquisition of a confidential federal phone card that enables the mayor to overcome service problems on wired and wireless phone systems in order to complete calls.

First Student, the Providence school bus contractor, has upgraded the two-way radio system that it uses to talk to its drivers and has installed GPS equipment on those buses that lacked it. School officials had great trouble getting through to First Student during the snowstorm because its phone lines were jammed, so the contractor has added lines and given the officials a portable radio compatible with First Student’s system.

And the state now has 97 traffic-monitoring cameras, up from 88 a year ago.

“Now, we’re ready for the test,” Gaynor said.

gsmith@projo.com