Alliance for Response Breaks New Ground
Based on the success of the first four forums, Alliance for Response is expanding in 2006. Forums are being planned for this year in the Southeast, Illinois, Seattle, Washington, and four cities in California.
Each new forum will be a unique response to its area's needs. For example, the forum planning group in Illinois has the goal of building a statewide preservation network. The Washington forum will focus mainly on Seattle, and the Southeastern forum will take place in a hurricane-prone state. The California regional forums in San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, and San Diego will be co-sponsored by the Governor's Office of Emergency Services and the California Preservation Program.
Heritage Preservation will develop a Team-Building Kit based on its experience with the forums so other communities can launch their own Alliance for Response programs.
New Relationships, New Projects
Cultural heritage networks have formed everywhere Alliance for Response forums were convened, and museums and libraries are finding themselves in new relationships with local emergency managers. Seed grants to each of these new networks are supporting and expanding their activities, which are as diverse as the communities they serve.
Dallas: The forum led to the creation of START, the State of Texas Alliance for Response Task Force. Led by Amigos Library Services, START has established chapters in Dallas and Houston and will work this year to bring the program to new cities.
Boston: At a follow-up meeting hosted by the president of the Boston Public Library, the Cultural Emergency Management Team (CEMT) was born. Both the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency and FEMA Region I are active partners, and for the first time in any major city, cultural institutions now have a regular seat at the city's Emergency Operations Center. CEMT recently hosted a second forum and has outlined an ambitious set of goals for the future (see related story).
Ohio: The focus of the forum at the Cincinnati Art Museum was statewide, with discussion groups organized by geographic regions. Each region has taken a slightly different approach. All the resources under development will be shared statewide:
- The Northern Ohio group will develop a centralized disaster recovery supply cache and document the planning process, usage, and supply replacement issues.
- The goal of the group in Central Ohio is to create a database of disaster prevention, response, and recovery resources and vendors, with an information-sharing component via the Web or a DVD.
- The Southeastern Ohio group plans to develop an educational component for disaster planning and recovery that meets the needs of the region's small cultural heritage institutions.
- In Southwestern Ohio, a mutual aid/mentoring program will bring together community-wide disaster planning resources and allow larger and/or more experienced institutions to share their knowledge with institutions in need.
New York: The local planning committee has been working with the regional office of the National Archives and Records Administration to sponsor a series of "table top" training exercises adapted to the needs of museums and libraries.
The national Alliance for Response project is made possible by Fidelity Investments through the Fidelity Foundation.