Heritage Preservation Chairs Panel at Preserve America Summit
From left, Deidre McCarthy, Historian/GIS Specialist,
National Park Service; Lawrence L. Reger, President
of Heritage Preservation; Laura Bush, First Lady of
the United States; David Maurstad, Director, Mitigation
Division, Federal Emergency Management Agency;
and Ruth Mascari, Senior Planner, Maryland Department
of Planning.
The Preserve America summit was held in New Orleans last October, with First Lady Laura Bush, honorary chair of the Preserve America initiative, as the keynote speaker. Summit participants reviewed the major components of the national historic preservation program and present their considerations designed to advance historic preservation programs and policy. In addition, participants generated ideas for assisting communities in developing the tools and processes necessary for advancing historic preservation on a local scale. Panel reports are available for public comment.
Heritage Preservation co-chaired with FEMA a panel entitled "Dealing with the Unexpected." Three major priorities emerged:
- Geographical Information Systems (GIS)—knowing where things are
- Making cultural heritage part of emergency management
- Mitigation.
A gulf still exists between historic preservation and collecting institutions in implementation. Several initiatives emerged from the meeting:
- An effort will be made to initiate one or more pilot projects that incorporate historic preservation resources, museums, libraries, and archives into the GIS being developed.
- A technical advisory committee will develop a manual for historic resources/preservation and emergency managers, based on a 1000 Friends of Florida publication.
- Tulsa is submitting a proposal to FEMA for a Pre-Disaster Mitigation grant based on Project Impact.
A challenge for collecting institutions is that buildings are more visible than collections in an emergency, and private owners, governments, and nonprofits are all large constituencies in historic preservation. Heritage Preservation continues to work to represent the interests of collecting institutions as the Preserve America initiative continues.