An accident causes traffic to back up on Route 146 North in Lincoln near the Wilbur Road overpass yesterday morning.

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The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy

The first winter storm of the new year brought more slush than snow to most of Rhode Island, yet state and local officials tried to show that they’d learned from the failures of last month’s snowstorm debacle.

The Dec. 13 storm dropped 8 inches of snow during the afternoon commute and stranded motorists and more than 100 Providence schoolchildren in hours of memorable gridlock.

With the storm predicted to arrive early yesterday morning, and snowfall totals ranging from 1 to 13 inches, state and city officials began making plans Sunday afternoon.

All schools in the state, except on Block Island, were canceled. Providence employers were asked to have their employees start work later yesterday morning and stagger their dismissals yesterday afternoon. The Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce e-mailed businesses in the city with that request Sunday at the behest of the state Emergency Management Agency.

The state Emergency Operations Center was opened and staffed overnight. Providence also opened its Emergency Operations Center. State officials and the governor held conference calls. This time, Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline sat down with his cabinet and city department heads to discuss how they would handle the storm.

Wearing a sweater, Governor Carcieri stood before the media cameras Sunday night to warn residents about the storm. Maj. Gen. Robert T. Bray, the director and also now interim executive director of the state Emergency Management Agency, held two news conferences yesterday morning. Neither was around during the Dec. 13 storm — Carcieri was on a plane in the Middle East and Bray had called out sick.

This time, the public officials stressed coordination and communication — two things that suffered before. “The biggest thing [that was different] for us is the coordination was more formal and more public,” said EMA spokeswoman Brittan Bates.

Yesterday, the roads were as quiet as a Sunday morning. There were no school buses, fewer vehicles, but the same number of state and city plows — this time able to clear snow without getting stuck in traffic. The state police had extra troopers on the roads and more detectives in the barracks to handle calls, and a trooper was posted at the Thurbers Avenue curve on Route 95 in case of traffic problems, said Maj. Steven O’Donnell. By afternoon, the state police were reporting seven accidents and 45 disabled motor vehicles during the storm — significantly fewer than the nearly 200 calls during the Dec. 13 storm.

About 11,000 customers were reported to be without power yesterday morning, and there were concerns about heavy wet snow breaking tree limbs and downing power lines. According to National Grid Spokeswoman Vanessa Charles, the number of customers without power dropped to roughly 1,000 by early evening, and was down to 258 by 9:30 p.m. Most of the outages were in northwest Rhode Island, and nearly all were storm related.

Snow fell heavy, but early, and there was less of it than in last month’s storm.

Most fell in the northwest corner of the state, where Burrillville received 9.5 inches and North Foster had 8.5 inches, according to the National Weather Service. The rest of the state had less: 5 inches of snow in Woonsocket, 4.5 in Providence, 3.2 in Pawtucket, and 2.5 at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick.

In East Bay, where Barrington had 3 inches of snow, the police saw a few minor collisions.

Accumulations in South County ranged from about an inch near the coast to 3 to 4 inches inland and north.

It was as if state and local officials were preparing for the blinding storm that hit on Dec. 13, when snow fell at a rate of 1 to 3 inches an hour during a weekday afternoon. Then, children were released early from school and workers from area businesses, sending motorists onto the roads and highways at the worst time, despite weather service warnings that snow would be so heavy “any travel should be completed by noon across southern New England.”

Public officials were hammered with criticism about state leadership and communication at the top. The state and Providence EMA directors were fired.

This time, the governor was in Rhode Island, the adjutant general was at work, and the mayor of Providence took charge before the storm hit. The state EMA wasn’t left on its own. The Providence police and the state police were in the Emergency Operations Center with EMA staff. Providence also kept in touch with the state EMA. No communities requested state help, Bates said.

However, officials at the state Department of Transportation again declined to go to the EOC, choosing instead to remain at its Transportation Management Center in Providence.

The state EMA had trouble communicating with traffic officials during the Dec. 13 storm. The former executive director of the state EMA told The Journal that he couldn’t get calls through to DOT officials and ended up dealing with Carcieri’s chief of staff, who was at the transportation center.

The state EMA doesn’t have a direct link to the DOT traffic cameras — a persistent problem the emergency agency hasn’t had the money to fix — so it accesses the cameras the same way the public does. The state EMA didn’t know about the gridlock on the highways until mid-afternoon, when the state police reported moving vehicles backing up traffic, and Providence never called about its gridlock or requested help.

This time, the state DOT used the laptop communications system, called the Web-EOC, which links to the Emergency Operations Center at the state EMA. The DOT also gave the state EMA officials the numbers to phones that would be answered, Bates said.

With staff reports from Randall Edgar and Daniel Barbarisi.

amilkovi@projo.com