ALLIANCE FOR RESPONSE NEWS BRIEF

June – July 2012

This bi-monthly newsletter is shared with local Alliance for Response Steering Committees to provide information and inspiration. Please share it with your listservs. You can find more details about the activities of all Alliance for Response networks here.

Heritage Preservation Needs Your Input!
In January 2012, Heritage Preservation was awarded a grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities to conduct three Alliance for Response forums over the next two years. The grant includes creation of an Online Resource Center that will offer more than our existing Tool Kit to enable disaster networks to share and borrow ideas, explore best practices, and learn from one another.

To develop a Resource Center that meets your needs, we’ve set up an IdeaScale site to gather input and suggestions from you, Alliance for Response stakeholders. The site has been divided into campaigns or questions to help stimulate the discussion. Feel free to respond to any of the questions and/or initiate a new discussion topic. For reference, click here for the Alliance for Response home page.

This site will only be up until August 10, 2012, so give this some thought and then provide us with your suggestion(s). Please visit the Alliance for Response Community on IdeaScale to share your ideas. On the left-hand side of the page, under “Campaigns,” click through the various topics to see what others have already posted. Click “Submit New Idea” when you would like to share an idea to a particular campaign or “Vote” on an idea when you like or dislike it. We’ll summarize the ideas in August and launch into designing a platform that addresses your most important priorities. Thanks, in advance, for helping us create an even better Alliance for Response!

The Alliance for Response networks across the country have been extremely busy these past months, in some cases successfully responding to major disasters, and we are pleased to report the following activities:

Boston
The Boston network, COSTEP MA (Coordinated Statewide Emergency Preparedness in Massachusetts), continues to hold its bi-monthly meetings. They try to have a guest speaker as often as possible to get a different perspective on the protection of cultural heritage (and to improve attendance). Diane Viera of Historic New England facilitated a discussion about practical and realistic approaches to creating a communication plan for COSTEP MA. Gary Keith of the National Fire Protection Association spoke about the unique aspects of firefighting and fire protection that accompany cultural institutions. COSTEP MA continues to work on its Hazard Mitigation Grant awarded by FEMA and MEMA. A video is being produced on protecting the Commonwealth’s cultural heritage, and a COSTEP MA website will be launched later this summer. Community meetings will begin this fall to engage cultural stewards, municipal planners and officials, and local emergency managers in collaborative efforts to mitigate threats to cultural institutions and prepare for emergencies.

Denver
Eight wildfires burned simultaneously in Colorado during June, forcing tens of thousands to evacuate their homes, destroying more than 500 structures, and resulting in the worst fire season since 2002. The Cultural & Historic Resources Task Force, including members of the Denver Alliance for Response, kicked into action despite being a newly-formed partnership. Members identified cultural and historic resources that might be affected and reached out to those organizations to offer assistance, such as temperature- and humidity-controlled storage facilities for evacuated collections. Additionally, task force members rotated responsibility for attending daily operations and recovery conference calls coordinating response and recovery efforts at the state level and offered input regarding cultural and historic resources. A debriefing on current efforts occurred at the quarterly meeting on July 12, 2012, and next steps include preparing for the additional wildfires that are expected as low humidity and high temperatures persist.

For more information contact, Leigh Grinstead, LYRASIS, at leigh.grinstead@lyrasis.org,or Leslie Williams, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, at leslie.williams@ucdenver.edu.

New York
Alliance for Response NYC held a program on June 20, 2012, entitled “Inside a Document Recovery Center,” hosted by Rapid Refile. James Gilbert of Rapid Refile presented on working with a document salvage contractor, including prioritization, the first steps to take after a disaster, different document recovery methods, and case studies. Participants then visited Rapid Refile’s Allentown, PA, facility, where they observed the steps that documents travel through during drying and cleaning. Attendees now know what to expect when recovering from a disaster and are better equipped to make decisions for their collections in the event of a disaster.

In July, members of AFR NYC’s steering committee attended a training session in the NYC Office of Emergency Management’s Emergency Operations Center, where Alliance for Response may be called to serve in the event of a regional emergency.

North Carolina Connecting to Collections
Being prepared and ready to respond to a disaster at an institution can mean the difference between life and death for its collections. Sitting through a class on disaster planning and recovery is one thing, but showing up to a training scenario in which a museum has suffered a fire is another. In an effort to train class participants how to deal with materials that have survived a fire, North Carolina Connecting to Collections, along with the Wake County Fire Marshall’s Office, created a mock museum disaster using a fire department’s live fire training building.

Class participants arrived to the smell of smoke and the sound of dripping water. A fire had occurred in the storage and exhibit areas of the “Burnsville Museum.” The “museum’s staff and volunteers” (a.k.a. the class participants) worked in the summer heat to mitigate the damage. The staff members were divided into teams of three and had to document and triage their individual sections of the museum, which contained archival material, textiles, storage boxes, exhibit components, books, and a variety of three-dimensional objects. After the triage process was completed, each team devised a plan to start the salvage process for their section. Teams spent the next several hours rinsing photographs, vacuuming textiles, and interleaving books to air dry. Participants also used the Incident Command System to better acclimate themselves to what a real disaster would be like and how to work as efficiently as possible.

Pennsylvania
On June 6, 2012, the first statewide meeting of the Pennsylvania Alliance for Response was held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The meeting brought together representatives from AFR groups in Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia to discuss statewide initiatives and the potential for coordinated activities. The session included presentations by Lori Foley, Vice President of Emergency Programs at Heritage Preservation, Amanda Ciampolillo, Acting Regional Environmental Officer for FEMA Region III, and Fred Boylstein, Central Area Director for the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA). As a result of the meeting’s discussions, action items were developed in the areas of relationship building, collaboration, and sustainability of regional and state AFR initiatives. The group hopes to build upon this successful first meeting and work to have cultural institutions incorporated into statewide emergency plans.

Portland
On June 20, 2012, Portland Alliance for Response held a concentrated, half-day training session on ICS-100 and ICS-200, the first two courses in FEMA’s Incident Command Systems series. Twenty-four staff members, from large and small museums, historical societies, libraries, and state agencies, participated in the training. Feedback on the training was very positive. All responding participants said that they now have a much better understanding of how first responders organize their response to a disaster event, and over 80% said that they improved their ability to manage their own institution’s response. Many participants committed to reaching out to their local first responders and taking back what they learned in this training to their institutional emergency preparedness teams. Selected participant feedback:

“Great session!”
“The information was incredibly useful.”
“I found the training to be very valuable. Great instructor!”

Thank you to Scott Winegar for volunteering his time as the expert trainer, Concordia University for providing the venue, and Heritage Preservation/Alliance for Response for support and funding.

The PDX Alliance for Response Steering Committee is now busy planning an all-day forum for October 2012.

Savannah
SHER (Savannah Heritage Emergency Response) Board members and several representatives from its member institutions attended the Chatham Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) Hurricane Conference in May. SHER's afternoon workshop was presented by Summer Street, the Document Sector Manager for Polygon, and Justin Still, another Polygon representative, known to many as SHER’s “Code Blue” contact. The session focused on the possibilities and realities of restoring records and included several case studies. Members reported making valuable contacts throughout the conference. This was SHER’s May Day submission for Heritage Preservation’s raffle, and SHER was delighted to win a React Pak!

SHER also held its summer meeting on June 18, 2012, entitled “What I Learned at Hurricane Camp.” Since most members could not attend CEMA’s Hurricane Conference, SHER reviewed some important lessons and follow-ups to the conference. This included SHER’s involvement in Chatham Community Organizations Active in Disaster (CCOAD) and companies that can help with FEMA Public Assistance applications. SHER’s CEMA representative, Dave Grotyohann, led the discussion on damage assessment teams. SHER also updated its membership on its latest work including:

Updating and revising the SHER website to include a clearinghouse of disaster planning resources—from creating disaster plans and continuity of operations plans to recovery, online courses, financial resources, and the interface between cultural organizations and emergency managers.
Developing a guiding document that lists potential initiatives and goals for SHER. This document will be a guide for future SHER activities and programs both immediate and long-term.
SHER joined the Chatham County Local Emergency Planning Committee.
Four additional SHER members are now qualified to sit in the Emergency Operations Center, bringing its total to eight.

Seattle
SHERN (Seattle Heritage Emergency Response Network) met with BELFOR representatives on February 24, 2012. Marshall Oliver of BELFOR Canada did a presentation on his experience with major disasters in seven parts of the world.

On May 4, 2012, Science Kilner, Deputy Regional Environmental Officer for FEMA Region X, met with SHERN to discuss FEMA's National Disaster Recovery Framework (NDRF) and its possible impact on cultural institutions.

SHERN is currently exploring a possible "fiscal-sponsor" relationship with another organization and will be hosting an upcoming salvage workshop.

Heritage Preservation
Lastly, Jenny Wiley, the former Program Assistant for Emergency Programs, has shifted into a new role as the Communications and Online Coordinator here at Heritage Preservation. Lindsay McCook has replaced her as the new Program Assistant working with Vice President of Emergency Programs Lori Foley. Lindsay began work at Heritage Preservation in late June after finishing her Master of Architecture at Tulane University this past spring. She has experience in cultural heritage disaster response, having worked with AmeriCorps post-Katrina in New Orleans for an historic preservation non-profit. She is happy to be corresponding with all of the Alliance for Response members and helping build strong disaster prevention and response networks across the country.

If you have questions about this News Brief or if you have news to report, please contact Lindsay McCook at lmccook@heritagepreservation.org.

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The Heritage Emergency National Task Force is a partnership of 41 government agencies and national service organizations formed in 1995. An initiative of Heritage Preservation and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Task Force has helped to protect cultural heritage from the damaging effects of natural disasters and other emergencies. Find valuable disaster resources at the Task Force Web site, www.heritageemergency.org

Heritage Preservation is a national non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the cultural heritage of the United States. By identifying risks, developing innovative programs, and providing broad public access to expert advice, Heritage Preservation assists museums, libraries, archives, historic preservation and other organizations, as well as individuals, in caring for our endangered heritage.