As executive director of the R.I. Emergency Management Agency, Robert J. Warren works to protect Rhode Island’s residents and property for the event of a disaster, whether it’s a hurricane, or a terror attack.
PBN: What was the RIEMA’s condition when you started?
WARREN: It was in good shape. I think the problem had been that a lot of the original plans that had been written here were functional but didn’t keep up with the changes in emergency management. Emergency management – how the nation deals with it, never mind the local communities – changed drastically after 9/11. And then we had the state issue of The Station fire. And right as I got here we had the Katrina issue that changed things drastically.
PBN: How much progress has been made?
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WARREN: A lot of progress has been made in all of the areas, some of it through other agencies … working in conjunction with us. All the hurricane plans were rewritten last year, and we actually are now in the process of rewriting them again.
PBN: How did they change?
WARREN: We changed it to a time-based format internally. Now we have requirements 72 hours before a predicted landfall where my agency will be making phone calls to other agencies that are our partners, and then it comes down to a 48-hour window and a 24-hour window. … We also wrote several annexes off of that. The evacuation routes were put online last year, and we’ve made some corrections to some streets that were mislabeled. Right now we’re looking at our distribution of food and water. We’re the only state in New England to have a plan, and we’re rewriting it in conjunction with our region to make sure that it’s updated. … Last year, we [rewrote our] debris management plan. … [This year, we] brought in some private contractors, and they gave us some ideas of how to change it. … People think of debris as trees, but we could have damaged houses with hazardous materials in them or propane tanks floating around.
PBN: What kinds of situations are we well prepared for in the state right now?
WARREN: I think we’re much better prepared for most of the problems that we’ll face. … A lot of the capabilities we’ve added since [9/11] are multi-functional. What we can use for a terrorist attack we certainly can use in a hurricane.
PBN: What are the major emergencies that the agency plans for?
WARREN: Hurricanes, terrorist attacks or the effects of a terrorist attack. We worry about fallout from a nuclear accident either at the Pilgrim plant [in Plymouth] or the plant in Connecticut. … We worry about tornadoes obviously, and earthquakes. We get notified of earthquakes that happen in New England more often than people realize. Usually they’re only 1, 1.5 or 2 on the Richter scale, but I probably get notified of at least one earthquake a month. … We also plan for local hazardous material spills, industrial accidents and things like that.
PBN: What events are we not well prepared for?
WARREN: There are always going to be trouble areas, and one that concerns me is an electricity failure. If we have a power failure on the grid outside of our control that our local people can’t repair, it could be a very challenging situation.
PBN: Is there anything being done to address that? WARREN: We work very closely with National Grid. … They now sit in our emergency operations center during an incident, so we have real-time data from them. Many times they are able to answer our requests as we make them as far as transferring power throughout the state to keep it even.
PBN: How is the statewide emergency communications system?
WARREN: The big thing everyone hears about is the 800 system. That is moving forward. It is a $77 million project to get that done. It will take several fiscal years to get that accomplished, but we are putting in for more funding to do that. We have about 85 percent of the infrastructure in place. That does not mean we have 85 percent of our law enforcement and fire personnel on that right now. … Most of Washington County is on it, and we’re bringing Newport and the Aquidneck Island area on board this year, and then we’re going to move north rather quickly.
PBN: What are the biggest challenges for the RIEMA?
WARREN: Education. We need to get my partners up to speed. … They have responsibilities within the response structure. And two, [we need] to get the community educated that it also has responsibilities. There’s a belief out there that FEMA can come in and handle any emergency, and one, that is not the case, and two, getting federal resources into the state is going to take three days, and people need to be self-sufficient.
POSITION: Executive director, R.I. Emergency Management Agency
BACKGROUND: Warren started as a firefighter in Cranston in 1978. After serving as a lieutenant, captain, deputy chief and assistant chief, he became chief in 2000. He also served with the Cranston Emergency Management Agency for 10 years, including six as director. He left both positions in August 2005 to go to RIEMA, where, as executive director, he oversees a staff of 25 and a budget of $850,000 in state funds and $9.4 million in federal funds – Êthough of the latter, 80 percent is distributed to local communities, as required by law.
EDUCATION: A.S., 1976, Community College of Rhode Island; B.S. in fire safety, 1980, Providence College
RESIDENCE: Wakefield, South Kingstown
AGE: 52
