Preserving the Collection: Disaster Planning, Response & Recovery

  This video by the Northeast Museum Services Center discusses how to go about conducting a risk assessment, one of the first steps in mitigating hazards at your institution and an important part of emergency planning.   Assessing Risks - Emergency Preparedness for Museum Collections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i___sw8hGB0

Where does your institution fit into disaster planning on the county-wide and state-wide level? Who are the points of contact? What hazards is your area most likely to face, and what can you do to prevent and mitigate them? The Texas Department of Emergency Management website is a great place to go to answer these questions. There, you can find a map of the six regions, and each region has contact information for section chiefs and district coordinators, as well as links to each county's website, where you can find the county's Hazard Mitigation Plan.  www.tdem.texas.gov/

Did you miss our recent webinars, Weathering the Storm: 2022 Hurricane Preparations for Cultural Institutions (May 2022), and Understanding and Upgrading Your Collection Preservation Environment (June 2022)? The recordings, slides, and handouts are available to view on the Texas Historical Commission's website .  

The Incident Command System (ICS) is a command structure commonly used in emergency management in the US. It establishes clear roles and responsibilities that supercedes other organizational structures, which is beneficial in that it can be implemented across agencies, but it can be difficult to understand if suddenly confronted with it. The Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts provides an excellent summation of the various roles and terms you may encounter when working within the ICS.    CCAHA ICS Terms: https://ccaha.org/resources/introduction-incident-command-system   FEMA ICS class list: https://training.fema.gov/nims/

In an emergency, it's a good idea to have a support network already in place. Many of us already have relationships with cultural heritage groups, such as TX-CERA, AIC, FAIC, or TAM, but it's also a good idea to build relationships with emergency responders. These documents by FAIC lists talking points to discuss with emergency responders before an emergency and how to communicate during an emergency.   https://www.culturalheritage.org/docs/default-source/resources/emergency-resources/alliance-for-response-documents/working-with-emergency-responders-booklet.pdf?sfvrsn=2   https://www.culturalheritage.org/docs/default-source/resources/emergency-resources/alliance-for-response-documents/review-with-local-responders-revea426c46946d640d929bff00002fd16b.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Fire and flooding are often the primary concerns when we think of major damage to our collections. How may each of these affect the objects in our care, and what should first responders be aware of during salvage attempts? This article by Jerry Podany gives a great overview of how materials are affected by fire and floods, as well as how to organize recovery efforts.   https://www.archives.gov/preservation/conservation/objects-recovery.html