City Leaders Meet to Discuss Hurricane Earl; Setting Up Hotline Number to Address Concerns

The city's department heads met at the police station Wednesday afternoon to game-plan for the worst-case scenario, should Hurricane Earl make a turn and directly hit Newport later this week.

Newport Fire Capt. Peter Kirwin told Patch that city leaders are remaining "cautiously optimistic" that the storm will stay on track, meaning that it will reach our area around 1 a.m. Saturday, staying about 148 miles southeast of Newport. Forecasts currently predict tropical storm winds, high seas and four to eight inches of rain for our area. Kirwin noted that localized flooding could occur, but it won't be as bad as those spring floods since we've had such a dry summer.

Hurricane Earl still has a point of error of 200 miles on either side, though, so Kirwin said Newport officials are keeping a close eye on it in the event it deviates and they have to mandate beach and road closures and evacuations.

"The worst-case would be a Category 2 hurricane and a direct hit on Newport, and then we'd decide whether to stand up our emergency operation center and man it 24 hours until the storm has passed," Kirwin said. "Right now it appears we're not going to have to do that, but Friday afternoon is when we'll know what the final track is going to be."

Kirwin said the head of the Rhode Island Emergency Management Association is expected to have a conference call with school superintendents Thursday afternoon to help them decide whether to close school on Friday. Newport Public School students head back to class tomorrow.

The fire department has already put out notice to those on-call this weekend that they may have to hold an extra shift on duty Friday night. Kirwin said the police department is a day away from deciding whether to cancel vacations this weekend and call everybody in.

City officials are currently staging barricades and building up supplies of food and water, in addition to making sure equipment like small engines, portable pumps and chainsaws are fueled up and ready to go.

Kirwin said the EMA team did talk today about measures they've taken in the past like closing beaches and parking lots, but he said no decisions of that nature have been made just yet. Officials are concerned about the impact the storm could have on an influx of tourists this weekend and the 3-day Newport Waterfront Irish Festival. No decision has been made yet whether to cancel that event.

The city will be announcing a Hurricane Hotline number on Thursday, which residents can call for information throughout the storm.

"It'll be an informational line that says things like, 'if you have a concern about a tree, call this person, if you have an emergency, dial 911,'" Kirwin said.

The number will be uploaded onto the city's website and released on Patch as soon as it is available.