Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency Director Robert Warren seen at the agency’s Cranston headquarters in May. Warren held the post for 28 months before being fired yesterday by Governor Carcieri, less than a week after a severe snowstorm paralyzed the state. Providence Journal photo / Bill Murphy

PROVIDENCE — Governor Carcieri fired the executive director of Rhode Island’s Emergency Management Agency yesterday, after heated public criticism of the state’s response to the snowstorm that crippled the state and left commuters and schoolchildren stranded for hours.

Robert J. Warren’s firing from the $74,700-a-year job was immediate, according to a terse news release. The governor’s spokesman declined comment. Neither Maj. Gen. Robert T. Bray, to whom Warren reported, nor Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts, who chairs the Emergency Management Advisory Council, responded to calls seeking comment. As adjutant general, Bray is taking over as EMA executive director until a replacement is named.

At yesterday’s advisory council meeting, the first that Roberts had convened in months, the lieutenant governor promised changes, including better communication during emergencies. “It was very clear the public wanted to know what was going on, and there wasn’t a public voice making that clear,” she said.

Extra

PDF: Read the state Emergency Management Agency’s State Emergency Operations Plan

Gallery: More photos of Thursday's stormy commute

Your turn: Read commuters' first-hand accounts and tell us yours

Check for cancelations, parking bans

Storm shots

Valerie Johnson, Providence

View the slideshow

Upload your photo

She offered five issues for Bray to focus on for a meeting on Jan. 22: setting up a statewide system to coordinate closures of all schools and daycares, informing employers in Providence and elsewhere about recommended closing times, reviewing the traffic flow plans for rush hour in Providence during an emergency, improving communication between the municipalities and the state, and using a joint information center at the state to keep the public informed. She said she intends for the council to send the governor a full report on each issue.

Thursday’s snowstorm caused gridlock throughout the Greater Providence area and northern region of the state, resulting in commutes that lasted three to six hours. In Providence, about 100 schoolchildren were stranded on school buses through late evening. Although the head of the E-911 said yesterday that his agency was getting 911 calls from frantic parents as early as 5 p.m., the Providence emergency management director, the schools superintendent and the mayor were unaware the children were stranded until well after 8 p.m.

Warren told The Journal last week that he was also unaware of the gridlock until around 5:30 p.m. His staff had been “monitoring” the storm, and none of the local emergency directors had asked for state help. He said he’d gone home to South Kingstown and then returned to the EMA that night, where he was notified by a grandfather at 9 p.m. that Providence children were still on school buses. Warren said he offered Providence assistance but was refused.

On Monday, Carcieri said his administration did a “poor job” communicating with the public — and with each other — during the snowstorm. He was in the Middle East last week when the storm dumped 8.2 inches of snow into the heart of the state in a few hours. He told reporters later that he would not expect his staff to track him down there “for a six to ten-inch snowstorm.”

Although Roberts had pressed Carcieri’s staff to open the emergency operations center — where top officials from various agencies could have worked together and informed the public of their response — she said the governor’s staff turned her down. Gen. Bray also did not want to open the emergency operations center, said spokesman Lt. Col. Denis Riel.

In the end, there was no official announcement to the public about the storm or what state and local officials were doing, or any indication that they were all aware of the magnitude of the storm’s effect.

There are questions about whether anything will change.

At top speed, the Emergency Operations Center is the hub for management in a crisis, the place where representatives from state agencies and other organizations would work with each other in resolving a disaster and jointly communicate with the public.

The state EOC has been staffed for other events — during the Tall Ships event, the mycoplasma outbreak in West Bay schools, and when Tropical Storm Noel threatened this fall.

The EOC can be opened under certain circumstances: if a municipality asks for help, if a state agency requests more assistance, if the adjutant general or executive director of the EMA decide to open it, or if the governor declares an emergency.

None of that happened on Thursday.

Under the state’s own emergency operations plan, the ultimate responsibility for emergency management lies with the governor, who is also the only one who can call up the National Guard for the state’s use. Carcieri said he was flying from Kuwait to Afghanistan and probably sleeping as the storm bore down on Rhode Island.

That could have left Roberts in charge, but under the state Constitution, the lieutenant governor cannot assume the governor’s role unless he dies, resigns, is impeached or otherwise “unable to serve.” Being out of state or out of the country doesn’t count. (The House speaker is asking the House Separation of Powers Committee for a hearing on whether there should be a mechanism for the lieutenant governor to be in charge when the governor is out of state for more than 48 hours.)

Nearly five years ago, there was another lieutenant governor in that position. When a major winter storm was predicted over President’s Day weekend in 2003, then-Lt. Gov. Charles Fogarty returned from a conference in Washington, D.C. Carcieri, a new governor, remained in Florida.

Fogarty said then-Adjutant Gen. Reginald Centracchio told him that the governor’s staff didn’t want to open the emergency operations center because they didn’t want to panic anyone. Fogarty said he called Carcieri to insist, and the governor agreed. The EOC opened. Fogarty stood before the news cameras and spoke to the public; the governor spoke via speakerphone from Florida. Fogarty called the city leaders and asked what they needed. New Providence mayor David N. Cicilline needed help plowing the major intersections, so Fogarty sent in state plows.

“When you see exactly what’s going on and you get a different perspective,” Fogarty said. “It’s not a political issue. It’s not usurping power. … [People] don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican. They just want you to work together.”

After that, Fogarty said, Carcieri rarely told him when he’d be out of the state. Except for news reports, Roberts hadn’t known Carcieri was gone for a week. Thursday’s snowstorm raises questions about how a real emergency would be handled, Fogarty said. “If you can’t be communicated with in an emergency, do we have to put everything on hold?” he said.

As the council meeting discussed Thursday’s storm, Warren was conspicuously absent. Bray evaded questions about Warren’s comments on yesterday’s talk-radio show on WPRO 630 AM, when he told John DePetro during a grueling interview that he was “working on other projects” during the storm and didn’t know about the gridlock until hours later.

Warren had been the first EMA chief with public safety experience in at least 20 years. He had retired as Cranston fire chief after 27 years with the department and 6 as the city’s EMA chief, when he’d been awarded EMA director of the year.

Carcieri tapped him to head the state EMA in August 2005, as Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. Under Warren, the state EMA produced its first hurricane plan within several months, its first statewide evacuation routes, and established an interoperable radio communications system meant to help officials from various state and local agencies communicate in a disaster. Warren restructured the agency, which had been used as a political dumping ground, and he used federal money to hire planners to work with the municipalities to improve their emergency response.

Then the snow fell, as predicted, fast on Thursday, and those in charge didn’t see the ramifications until too late.

amilkovi@projo.com