Cultural Heritage at Risk
The art, artifacts, historic records, and monuments that tell California’s story reside in communities across our state. Museums, historic homes, and state parks welcome thousands of visitors every year. Public libraries and local archives hold in trust the histories of towns and families and serve as centers of information and culture. The events of September 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina, remind us that cultural icons are vulnerable to damage from terrorism and natural disasters. However, we also learned that some basic measures can protect artistic and historic treasures against even the most devastating events. To that end, effective preparedness and training are reinforced by good working relationships between institutions, emergency managers, and first responders.
The Challenge
The need for dialogue is clear. Bringing emergency managers together with the cultural heritage community has been a long-term goal of the Heritage Emergency National Task Force. On the one hand, preservation professionals can offer a great deal of expertise on protecting and salvaging collections, but they may not understand local emergency protocols. At the same time, art and historic artifacts can be damaged by the actions of emergency personnel not trained to handle these materials. Since 2003, Alliance for Response forums have been bringing cultural heritage leaders and emergency management professionals together, to help forge working relationships before disaster strikes.
Building Strong Partnerships
To be effective, strategic alliances and public/private partnerships must be in place in the communities they will benefit, as the first response will be local, regardless of the cause and scope of the emergency.
The focus of the California forums is:
- providing education on local disaster management issues and protocols;
- raising awareness of the need to protect cultural and historic resources;
- encouraging disaster planning and mitigation; and
- developing strong networks to facilitate effective local response.
Participants include leaders of museums, libraries, archives, and historic preservation organizations, as well as state and local emergency management officials and first responders. The content of the forums has been developed by distinguished local committees in each host city.
About the Supporting Organizations
These forums are made possible with funding provided by the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) as part of their commitment to disaster preparedness, response and mitigation. With the assistance of private and public organizations, OES intends to make these forums yearly events.
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