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Business, B1 AS MUCH AS In Central Falls, It’s URI vs. No. 1 $216 Dexter Street IN COUPON hums with a Rams defeat Cincinnati, face Duke today SAVINGS INSIDE new vibrancy Sports, C1 Sunday, November 20, 2016 Vol. CXXXI, No. 47providencejournal.com © 2016 Published daily since 1829 $3.50 PROVIDENCE RISING SEAS, RISING STAKES Real estate developer Jason Fane, left, attends an I-195 A once-in-a-century hurricane would wreak havoc in R.I. Redevelopment District Commis- sion meeting last week with his Raise the sea level 7 feet and things get really ugly sister, Daria Fane, center, and, at right, Gad Regensburger, an Israeli engineer who has opened doors for Fane in Rhode Island. THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL/KRIS CRAIG The man behind high-rise proposal Skyscrapers proponent is well connected By Kate Bramson Journal Staff Writer PROVIDENCE — Provi- dence wasn't anywhere on Jason Fane’s radar three years ago. But then he hired Gad Regensburger, who has strong ties to the capital Baseline 100 year city through his decade-long No storm Return Period Storm friendship with Providence No sea-level rise 7’ sea-level rise Municipal Court Chief Judge 1 100 Frank Caprio. No damage projected Projected percent damage After Regensburger earned a master's degree from Brown University in 2013, a time when he and his IMAGES BY PETER STEMPEL, MARINE AFFAIRS VISUALIZATION LAB, UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND wife lived for a year with the Caprio family, Regensburger How bad they think it could get: The map on the left shows Conimicut Point, Warwick, today. On the right, the same neighborhood is subjected to a 100-year storm, accepted a job with The Fane plus a seven-foot sea rise. Missing buildings have already been displaced by higher seas, and colors show the extent of damage, ranging up to total loss in red. Organization in New York City. By Alex Kuffner | Journal Staff Writer For two years, Fane BARRINGTON ignored his new hire on one n his laptop computer, Grover Fugate, director of the Rhode Island Coastal front: "the virtues of Provi- Conimicut dence" as the next city where Resources Management Council, opens up a 3D map of the potential flooding Point he should invest, Fane told damage to buildings on Conimicut Point in Warwick if a storm like Hurricane The Providence Journal. Carol in 1954 were to strike again. The buildings are color-coded in shades Regensburger wore him down. starting with green, depicting no impact from the 15-foot surge of water that WARWICK “About a year ago, he storm winds would drive up Narragansett Bay; through yellow, a low percentage got me to come up here, Oof damage; orange, a higher percentage; and finally ending at red, a near-total or total loss. and I was pleasantly sur- prised,” Fane told the I-195 Redevelopment District The most vulnerable houses on the professor of ocean engineering at the Univer- Commission on Monday. narrow, triangular point that juts into the sity of Rhode Island, looks on, Fugate clicks to "I remembered Providence Bay are colored red, but the more sheltered the next slide in his presentation, showing a from how it had been in the shoreline neighborhoods to the north and map of the same neighborhoods in the event ’60s and ’70s, and it has south fare better, with swathes of yellow of the same type of 100-year storm. 1 mile and only scattered dabs of orange. indeed changed, has gotten Source: maps4news.com/©HERE a lot better.” Then, as Malcolm Spaulding, an emeritus SEE STAKES, A10 GATEHOUSE MEDIA Although Fane seemed to burst onto the Rhode Island scene last week with plans to PODCAST build three residential towers on former highway land in Providence, he has been visiting the city at least Spotlight on Providence as ‘Crimetown’ debuts since the Jan. 11 meeting of the Commerce Corporation By Amanda Milkovits American city. Providence, The rise of Online and 195 Commission. Journal Staff Writer with its notorious history Providence Throughout the year, Fane of mafiosi and corrupt Mayor Vincent Listen to the “Crimetown” has built a well-connected PROVIDENCE — Dirty politicans, is the focus of A. Cianci Jr. is preview — and at noon, team of local lawyers, lob- cops, crooked politicians Season One. among the sto- the fi rst two episodes — byists and communications and loyal mobsters — Provi- In the first two epi- rylines in the and explore projects from professionals with expe- dence's rich history of crime sodes, released Sunday, first episodes The Journal’s archives on rience in state and city and corruption is featured "Crimetown" sets out the of the podcast the Patriarca crime family government to help promote in the new podcast "Cri- landscape, with the rise “Crimetown.” and the vice and virtue of Hope Point Towers. metown," debuting Sunday. of the late Mayor Vincent JOURNAL Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci The series is meant to FILES/RICHARD Jr., at providencejournal. SEE FANE, A12 explore misdeeds in an SEE CRIMETOWN, A12 BENJAMIN com/crimetown TODAY MON TUE Arts Calendar ...F3 Editorial ......... A14 The Hunt for Green December Books ................F5 Lotteries .......... C4 For the freshest Christmas tree, you’ll want to tag now and cut later at tree Business .......... B1 Movies ............F10 Classifi ed ..D11,E5 Obituaries ........ B6 farms statewide. We take you to seven farms where you can pick your own. Crossword........ E3 Television ......... E4 49°/33° 44°/30° 45°/29° The Rhode Islander, F1 Complete forecast, C12 Home delivery: 401-277-7600 Sunday A10 Sunday, November 20, 2016 | PROVIDENCE JOURNAL | providencejournal.com Program grew from qualms about FEMA maps They’re too coarse and they overestimate widely spaced. The CERI Louis Gritzo, vice president maps are based on many more of research at the Johnston- protective eff ects of dunes, local experts say transects and, as a result, are based insurance firm FM more granular in detail and Global. By Alex Kuffner used to determine regula- more accurate overall, the But he also cautions against Journal Staff Writer tions, they are based only on two men say. using extreme projections of actual events and not future More specifically, Spauld- rising seas that look many One of the goals that the conditions that may or may ing and Fugate contend that decades ahead in flood- creators of Rhode Island’s not take place. FEMA has the FEMA maps underesti- ing maps, as he says people Coastal Environmental Risk also denied that its decisions mate how storms would affect may simply choose to ignore Index had in mind when they are affected by complaints coastal dunes in southern them. developed the new mapping from residents, communi- Rhode Island, a key factor in FM Global takes more of a program was to offer an alter- ties or politicians and has predicting damage to build- middle ground in flood risk native to federal flood maps. responded to charges that its ings and structures behind the assessments for its clients. The maps issued by the maps are outdated, saying dunes. The dunes don’t offer The firm incorporates rising Federal Emergency Manage- that funding limits the neces- as much protection as FEMA seas, but for now it is not pro- ment Agency serve as the sary fieldwork that goes into would lead one to believe, Grover Fugate, left, director of the Coastal Resource Management Council, jecting an increase in the rate nation’s standard in deter- creating the maps. they say. and Macolm Spaulding, professor emeritus in ocean engineering at the of sea level rise. mining building codes and But Grover Fugate, direc- “Our beaches are very University of Rhode Island, with their CERI program, which predicts flooding Overall, Gritzo says, the insurance coverage, but they tor of the Rhode Island narrow and very low in pro- from severe storms and sea level rise. THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL/KRIS CRAIG CRMC is doing important have been widely criticized Coastal Resources Manage- file,” Fugate says. “They work to raise awareness about for a variety of reasons. Some ment Council, and Malcolm disappear very quickly.” then it’s gone,” Spaulding 2012 to account for changes coastal risks and deserves charge that FEMA’s process Spaulding, professor emeri- To demonstrate his and says as the FEMA map is in the coastline caused by credit for its work to develop to determine flood zones is tus of ocean engineering Spaulding’s point, Fugate replaced by the CERI map. the storm. The results of projections of storm impacts. open to political influence or at the University of Rhode toggles between a FEMA map “Shave the top of the dune off the assessment showed no “There are people who that its maps are out of date, Island — the pair who over- and a CERI map of the same and any protection you had change in the projections. are going to think different while others say the maps saw the development of CERI area in Charlestown. The has just been eliminated.” The maps “remained valid things of different models,” are based only on past events — raise additional concerns. former assumes the coastal Kerry Bogdan, a senior and unchanged,” she said in he says. “It’s not a black-or- and not projections of more They argue that the FEMA dunes will be preserved to an engineer in FEMA’s New an email. white case.” extreme storms and higher maps are fundamentally extent and the latter assumes England office, says the The FEMA maps aren’t seas. inaccurate because the geo- they will be completely wiped agency reanalyzed dune perfect, and some of the — akuffner The agency has countered graphic points they rely on, out.

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