PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – Providence Mayor David Cicilline on Thursday fired the city’s director of emergency management and said a systemwide communication breakdown was to blame for children being stranded on school buses for hours during a fast-moving snowstorm last week.

Cicilline said he took responsibility for the Dec. 13 debacle, which he called “totally unacceptable,” but he also blamed the bus company that brings students home, the school department, the superintendent and the emergency management agency for failing to communicate with each other and for being slow to recognize how serious the problem was.

A timeline released by the mayor’s office shows that buses became stuck early in the afternoon, but that high-ranking city officials – including the school superintendent and police chief – did not learn the extent of the problem until later that evening. The last of the students was not brought home until after 11 p.m. Even as several dozen buses remained stranded well into the evening, parents were not told where their children were.

“There were errors in communication, judgment and leadership. Ultimately, it’s my responsibility to ensure that this never happens again to the children of our city,” Cicilline said at a news conference, where he announced the firing of Leo Messier, the director of the emergency management agency, and unveiled changes to the city’s emergency communication system.

City and state officials have faced stinging criticism for their handling of the first snowstorm of the season. Routine commutes took hours, cars were abandoned along the highway and traffic backed up for miles, creating a gridlock that blocked buses from getting through.

Cicilline blamed Superintendent Donnie Evans by name, saying he was very disappointed in him but did not plan to fire him.

“The district’s responsibility does not end once a student is placed on a bus,” Cicilline said. “It ends when all the students are safely delivered home.”

He said he had directed Evans to establish an automated telephone system to alert parents, and notify them each hour, when buses are significantly delayed. Other changes include automatically activating the emergency management cabinet when students are being driven home during dangerous weather; making sure younger students are taken home first during weather-related emergencies; and improving communication between bus drivers and the school district.

After last week’s snowfall, Cicilline asked his police chief and his chief of administration to review what went wrong. The timeline they compiled shows buses became stuck early in the afternoon, as commuters clogged highways while trying to beat a storm that was dropping as much as three inches of snow an hour. City schools were released two hours early.

Cicilline said critical information never reached him throughout the day.

“My expectation was that early release began and kids went home,” Cicilline said. “I expect to be advised up the chain of command if a problem arises.”

School officials learned from six principals at 5:20 p.m. that seven buses had yet to pick students up from their schools, according to the timeline. But Evans, the superintendent, did not learn that buses were having problems until around 7:25 p.m., when the department’s director of communications told him that reporters were asking about the situation.

“This was his first indication that there may be a problem,” the timeline says.

At that point, the review shows, between 60 and 75 buses – with an unknown number of students – remained on the street.

And Police Chief Dean Esserman said he, too, was unaware how bad the situation was until he received an 8:30 p.m. phone call from Cicilline’s chief of staff asking for help. At that point, Esserman said he mobilized his officers and the department opened a command center at headquarters to locate and pick up the students.

By 11:20 p.m., the review shows, the police had finished taking the students home.

Asked whether it took too long before the department was mobilized, Esserman replied, “Of course.”

He added: “We did not know that we had hundreds upon hundreds – if not thousands – of students stranded in buses or schools across this city.”

Besides firing Messier, Cicilline also suspended Tomas Hanna, the school department’s chief of operations, for 30 days. Gov. Don Carcieri on Tuesday fired Robert Warren, the executive director of the state Emergency Management Agency.