Ready Or Not: After Hurricane Katrina hit in August, The Journal began to examine whether Rhode Island is prepared for a big hurricane. This three-day series will be followed by a progress report in the spring. First of three parts.

09:50 AM EST on Sunday, December 18, 2005

BY PETER LORD and AMANDA MILKOVITS
Journal Staff Writers

First of three parts.

Rhode Island got lucky again this year.

The worst hurricane season in modern times ended a few weeks ago with no no storms coming our way.

Call it doubly lucky. Because the state just wasn't ready.

There is no official statewide plan for evacuating people ahead of a storm. Evacuation signs have been posted on some coastal roads. But no one has told the public where they lead.

Some $6 million has been spent to improve emergency communications. But less than half the state has been upgraded, and most radios will be useless if signal towers are toppled or the power is out for an extended time.

The Red Cross, which is in charge of establishing hurricane shelters, says there are not enough for all the people who might need them.

The devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the chaotic traffic jams from people fleeing Hurricane Rita shocked the nation. Rhode Island officials became aware the state needed workable disaster plans. Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino got that message too; the city spent nearly $1 million and unveiled a detailed evacuation plan last week.

Journal photo / Gretchen Ertl

Governor Carcieri, who has vivid recollections from his childhood of Hurricane Carol's storm surge sucking water out of Greenwich Bay, says he got the message even earlier. He says he decided in the summer of 2004 that Rhode Island was past due for another big storm and the state's Emergency Management Agency wasn't ready to deal with it. So he began prodding the agency to get "up to speed."

Carcieri insists things are improving. But the state still missed being ready for another hurricane season. Why?

* Bureaucratic inertia. Two state agencies have been working for more than a year with coastal towns on evacuation maps but not one is ready.

* Lack of state support. No money was ever earmarked for an evacuation plan, despite the $60 million in federal funds the state has received since 9/11 for emergency management. The money went mainly to prepare for such emergencies as chemical spills and for buying mobile command posts and other equipment. Terror response trumped hurricane preparedness.

* A lack of urgency. No catastrophic storm has hit since 1954, so despite repeated warnings, most Rhode Islanders have little appreciation for how devastating a major storm could be.

Carcieri also concedes that improvements were slowed because of the delays in selecting a new EMA director after Albert A. Scappaticci retired last winter. Carcieri didn't appoint his replacment until August.

Carcieri says the threat of terrorism and images of Katrina convinced him it is time to shake up the state's Emergency Management Agency.

"Emergency response is a serious business now," says the governor. "They have been reorganizing at the national level. Now it's cascading down to the states. The [state EMA] is no longer a place where you dump people you're trying to find a job for."

RHODE ISLAND is not Louisiana or Mississippi.

Katrina devastated low-lying land especially vulnerable to hurricane storm surges.

In Rhode Island there are vulnerable neighborhoods such as Matunuck, in South Kingstown, Misquamicut, in Westerly, and Common Fence Point, in Portsmouth, where residents would be urged to leave. They are scarcely above sea level.

Other coastal neighborhoods, including East Greenwich's Hill and Harbor District, are high above water.

State officials blocked redevelopment in some areas that were destroyed by the Hurricane of 1938 -- Napatree Point, in Westerly, and barrier beaches where Misquamicut and East Matunuck state beachs now stand.

But during the last 50 years, nearly 12,000 houses have been built near the ocean along Rhode Island's south shore.

Another 500 acres along Narragansett Bay have been filled in and the Bay's shoreline is jammed with houses and marinas.

Photographs of the aftermath of the Hurricane of 1938 show the piles of rubble around Winnapaug Pond in Westerly -- all that was left of the cottages at Misquamicut. Rooftops of cars and buses are scarcely visible in water flooding downtown Providence. A tanker is shoved five miles up the Taunton River from Fall River to Somerset. Boats block roads along the Bay. Entire neighborhoods were destroyed. Some 311 people died -- some pulled from collapsed houses and crushed cars.

Experts say when the next big hurricane hits Rhode Island, the devastation could be worse.

More people are at risk.

Power could be out for weeks.

Cleanup could take longer.

The hurricanes that reach Rhode Island come fast. And scientists say that global warming will trigger more storms and more damaging storms.

THE LAST TIME Rhode Islanders got information on emergency shelters was during the Cold War.

In 1966, the state distributed a booklet with maps of fallout shelters and emergency plans in the event of a nuclear attack.

Plans called for sheltering four-fifths of the state's population. When Hurricane Gloria hit the state in 1985, wind gusts to 90 miles an hour knocked out power to nearly a third of the state, damaged dozens of buildings and forced 7,300 people to evacuate. State officials began talking about preparing for a big one, but little was done.

In 1999, the federal government started setting aside money for "domestic preparedness," in response to the chemical attacks on subways in Japan. Rhode Island got $300,000, which it spent preparing for manmade disasters.

Then came Sept. 11, 2001.

Federal money for homeland security in Rhode Island jumped to $6.2 million in 2002, according to figures supplied by U.S. Sen. Jack Reed's office. Then $24 million the next year. Two more years at $23 million each. A total of $77 million.

John Aucott, the director of Homeland Security for Rhode Island, used some of the money to form and train teams for search and rescue and handling hazardous materials.

The fire at The Station nightclub in West Warwick in February 2003 also prompted calls for improving emergency response. Evaluations of the state's response showed many emergency workers couldn't communicate with each other. Some had more success with personal cell phones than their radios. Since then, the state spent tens of millions of homeland security dollars for a statewide communication system.

It also purchased mobile command posts at $70,000 to $200,000 each for Charlestown, Coventry, Cumberland, East Greenwich, Glocester, Middletown, North Kingstown, North Providence, West Greenwich and Woonsocket.

It spent $1.4 million on a mobile command post for the EMA with specialized equipment that enables emergency crews from different departments to talk to each other.

The state is also working on a reverse-911 system that will be able to notify thousands of people by phone in emergencies. Such systems are already in place in Pawtucket, Central Falls and Cumberland.

Much of the equipment and training purchased with homeland security money is also invaluable during natural disasters.

"Even though the money is for a terrorist attack, I still think a hurricane is the biggest threat that faces Rhode Island," Aucott says.

Federal financing is expected to decrease next year, because the rules governing where the money goes now favor the bigger and more populous states, Aucott said.

Even as the federal financing begins to decline, there remains much to do.

State officials say the communications upgrade is only about halfway complete.

The recent imposition of stricter standards for hurricane shelters has left the state with fewer shelters than it needs.

Today, there are Red Cross-approved hurricane shelters in some communities but not the most vulnerable towns -- Barrington, Newport, Jamestown and Block Island.

And little has been done to tell the public how to get to the shelters that are ready.

Nick Logothets, the disaster services manager for the American Red Cross of Rhode Island, said at a statewide hurricane summit in October, "We won't have enough shelters in my lifetime."

Work continues on evacuation maps. But the state still must complete a review to ensure the plans don't clash with each other. And it also has to coordinate with neighboring states so evacuees aren't sent into each others paths.

A traffic study of the proposed routes won't be completed another year.

LOCAL COMMUNITIES have responded in different ways to the increasing demands for emergency preparedness.

"If you told me four years ago that emergency management preparedness would be on the list that mayors would think about," says Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline, "I wouldn't have believed it. But it's now on the short list for every mayor in the country.

"It's almost impossible to look at what happened in New Orleans -- the enormity of the loss and the devastation of the city; it's hard to know how you respond to it," says Cicilline.

He knows New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin from meetings of the Conference of Mayors and watched him on television in September, making national pleas for his drowned city.

"One of the most important lessons of Katrina," Cicilline says, "is all mayors need to understand that it's not enough to have a plan and instructions."

It costs money to evacuate people, he says. People need to have transportation. They need to have a place to stay, and food and water when they get there. A city disaster plan has to have alternatives in place, such as buses and shelters, to get people out safely.

Journal photo / Andrew Dickerman

Coastline neighborhoods such as this one in Warwick would be vulnerable to a storm surge.

Every municipality faces different issues. Westerly, Narragansett and Newport, for example, host tourists well into hurricane season and that means they have to care for out-of-towners who won't know where to go or what to do.

Jamestown has no Red Cross-approved hurricane shelters, and its two bridges -- the only links to the mainland -- would be closed if cross-wind speeds rise to 69 mph.

Jamestown residents will have to evacuate early or prepare to take care of themselves.

The Providence Emergency Management Agency may have to evacuate thousands of people -- residents, tourists, conventioneers, college students, workers -- whose numbers vary widely from day to day.

Leo Messier, Providence's EMA director, has to reach out to more non-English speaking immigrants, disabled people and the elderly than most others responsible for municipal emergencies.

CARCIERI SAYS he understands why hurricane preparedness has been lacking.

"In post 9/11 all the focus was on homeland security," he says. "Everyone was getting geared up and worried about homeland security. [The National Guard] and the EMA were consuming most of what we were talking about."

The December 2004 retirement of EMA director Scappaticci caused some delays, he said.

Carcieri says he found a good replacement candidate who then decided he didn't want to move to Rhode Island.

Finally, two weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, Carcieri appointed former Cranston fire and EMA chief Robert Warren to head the Rhode Island EMA. He is the first EMA director in decades with a background in the emergency services.

Warren says he's already improved the system. He has changed assignments within the agency, is hiring more staff and contacting municipalities to find out what they need to handle a big storm.

Warren credits Carcieri with the new push on emergency response. "The governor told me he wants to make this a first-class operation."

"We still have a morale issue," says Warren. "I had hoped to reorganize here before I started hiring, but I didn't have time. Everyone agrees some of the job titles go back to the 1950s Cold War needs. Now we're involved in a lot of things no one ever thought of before."

Early in the fall, Warren promised that the evacuation routes, maps and shelter locations will be completed by January or February. Now the target date is May, just before the start of another hurricane season.

In the meantime, Warren and Messier and most other emergency management officials advise people to start preparing their homes and families. Set aside batteries, food and water. Set aside valuables to save. Plan where to flee, if necessary.

Says Messier: "People have to start thinking about 'If I have to evacuate, where am I going?' "