Massachusetts Heritage Responders

Training and planning for emergencies and disasters is critical for museums. Over the next few weeks, our founder is participating in the Massachusetts Heritage Responders training to be able to better assist museums when, not if, disaster strikes.

Hurricane Katrina (2005) spurred many changes to disaster response and recovery, including in the museum field. Long after the massive response to save lives and recover property, museums and cultural organizations lined up for support but found little that could be done. The damages were massive and many small organizations simply didn’t have the resources to respond and recover to their emergency situations.

The National Heritage Responders (NHR) and COSTEP began in part as a reaction to hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which struck New Orleans in the summer of 2005. In 2007, the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation (FAIC) developed a series of workshops to train museum and library professionals to be “rapid responders” who could support disasters. Today, there are over 100 volunteers around the US with a wide set of skills and knowledge to help when disaster strikes - not if.

COSTEP MA is leading the charge in Massachusetts to offer a Massachusetts Heritage Responders curriculum. The training is sponsored by the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation (FAIC), funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Multiple COSTEP MA partners have helped plan this opportunity, led by the Massachusetts Archives, Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, Boston Office of Emergency Management, Federal Emergency Management Agency (Heritage Emergency National Task Force), Northeast Document Conservation Center, plus support from the Executive Committee.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be refreshing our skills to be able to provide the best possible support to organizations faced with the unthinkable. From Incident Command Training to learning about how to work with objects damaged by water and smoke, we’re looking forward to learning as much as we can. While life and property take precedent in any disaster response, the collective salvage of history, cultural, and the arts is critical to long-term community recovery.