Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts, left, accompanied by her policy director, Jennifer Wood, and chief of staff Paul Tencher, waits to testify before a House committee yesterday.

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The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

PROVIDENCE — It took 8 inches of snow to highlight a problem with the state’s ability to handle a crisis. Whether state legislators can find a solution is a matter that’s outlasted the snowfall.

Under a 1992 amendment to the Rhode Island Constitution, when the governor leaves the state, he takes his authority with him. While that may not be a problem when the governor’s in Attleboro and carrying a cell phone, sleeping on a plane halfway around the world left him out of touch when Rhode Islanders were gridlocked and dozens of school buses stranded in a fast-falling snowstorm last month.

Last night, the House Separation of Powers Committee heard the first of two bills to amend the state Constitution and allow the lieutenant governor to take charge in the governor’s absence. Now, the Constitution only allows a lieutenant governor to fill the vacancy created by a governor’s death, resignation, impeachment or inability to serve.

One bill, sponsored by Rep. Alfred Gemma, D-Warwick, restores the original language of the state Constitution and allows the lieutenant governor to take charge when the governor is out of state. Yesterday, committee Chairman John J. DeSimone, D-Providence, introduced a bill, which was not heard, that would put the lieutenant governor in charge when the governor leaves the continental United States. Any constitutional amendment would need voter approval in November.

While Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts offered her support for Gemma’s bill, Governor Carcieri opposes it. The governor believes the bill isn’t practical and could present problems, such as “chicanery” by a lieutenant governor who could meddle in day-to-day affairs, said Jeff Greer, Carcieri’s deputy executive counsel.

“But given the factual situation [of the snowstorm], you’d agree with the premise that something needs to be done?” questioned committee member Rep. Peter Kilmartin, D-Pawtucket.

“No, I can’t agree with that,” Greer said. “I think the governor has the discretion to call upon elected officials. … You can debate whether that should have been done [in the storm].”

Sounding surprised, Kilmartin asked again whether the governor was satisfied with the status quo. Greer said he was. But Kilmartin wasn’t. “I think the situation cries out for some sort of action. The status quo is by far inadequate,” Kilmartin said. “If anything, please bring the message to the governor to please take a second look at this.”

When voters approved amending the state Constitution in 1992 to allow a governor to retain power out of state, the intent was to adapt a 150-year-old provision to modern times. Then-Gov. Bruce Sundlun was spending time at a Rochester, N.Y., hospital caring for his wife. The thinking at the time was that the governor could be reached by phone or, these days, e-mail, to communicate with top leaders to handle a crisis.

But the provision didn’t bargain on a sudden act of terrorism, an unpredicted disaster, or, in this case, an old-fashioned snowstorm.

The snow fell in the middle of a weekday on Dec. 13, causing hours of gridlock in Greater Providence and outlying highways, and stranding more than 100 schoolchildren on buses well into the night. Carcieri was in the Middle East, and he said later he wouldn’t have expected his staff to track him down for a 6- to 10-inch snowstorm.

That left no unified command in the state. Only the governor can declare a state of emergency and activate the state’s emergency plan to deal with a disaster. That didn’t happen.

The person the governor later said should have been communicating with people, Maj. Gen. Robert T. Bray of the Rhode Island National Guard, had called out sick and was in touch with the state Emergency Management Agency by cell phone and e-mail. The other person in charge, governor’s chief of staff Brian Stern, had one conversation with Carcieri by satellite phone and decided against opening the Emergency Operations Center — which could have united the public agencies handling the storm. The governor’s primary concern, Stern said at the time, was “is this a loss-of-life issue? Or is this a major inconvenience?”

Shortly after Carcieri returned from his trip, he fired Robert J. Warren, the executive director of the state EMA, citing dissatisfaction with Warren’s performance during the storm.

Yet, it was the governor’s decision not to act that left the state EMA with no authority. Warren, who answered to Bray, had no authority to do anything more than what he was doing until midnight at the Command Readiness Center — monitoring the weather reports, talking to the state police out on the roads, communicating with Stern in the Traffic Management Center at the Department of Transportation, and waiting for the municipalities to ask for help. None did — including Providence, which had 60 school buses stranded in grid-locked streets. Without the governor’s declaration of a state of emergency, the state cannot force a municipality to accept help.

Roberts had attempted to have the emergency operations center opened during the snowstorm, but was rebuffed by the governor’s staff.

“Regardless of technological advances in satellite and e-mail communications in the past 16 years, there are, and will continue to be, moments in governing during which an on-the-ground presence and a situational awareness will be critical,” Roberts testified before the committee. “Certainly the governor’s staff should be more than capable of carrying out the state’s routine business and ministerial duties while the governor is out of the state during non-emergency situations. … But in the case of an emergency, minutes can make a huge difference, and December 13th proved to Rhode Islanders that the governor’s lack of on-the-ground awareness kept him from being able to effectively respond to the situation.

“Had the constitutional amendment not been in place, December 13th would have had a different outcome,” she added.

amilkovi@projo.com