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PREP TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Disaster Planning Case Study

1. The Event
2. The Inital Response
3. Recovery & Reconstruction
4. Lessons
5. Conclusion

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I. INTRODUCTION

Museums across the country face a variety of potential disasters. Recent examples are the devastating winds and tides of hurricanes in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina; the powerful earthquake that rocked San Francisco and the Bay Area; the fires that ravaged the hills of Oakland; and the terrible floods throughout the Midwest. Weare also reminded that museums are not exempt from terrorism, as we hear of bombings in Europe.

Hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and other forces--natural and man-made--pose threats to valuable museum resources. Experience and common sense demonstrate the importance of a swift and coordinated response in order to minimize injury and damages to patrons, staff, museum objects, and facilities. However, such a response is not possible without thorough pre-disaster planning, organization of response networks, production of written disaster preparedness/recovery plans, and training in preparedness and recovery response.

It has long been a vision of TAM members Mary Candee and Rick Casagrande to produce a Disaster Preparedness and Recovery resource manual for museum colleagues. They proposed a project to publish a resource manual and series of workshops to the TAM Council in 1989. The TAM Council agreed to explore the idea, and in 1991 an Ad Hoc Committee on Disaster Preparedness/Recovery was formed to assess the need for such efforts in the Texas museum community. This committee conducted a phone survey of 102 institutional members of TAM. Of 82 museums responding, 49% indicated they had disaster preparedness/ recovery plans; however, only 7% of these indicated they were definitely satisfied with their plans, while 28% indicated they were "very unhappy" with their current plans as they now exist. In addition, 51 % had no plans at all, 65% had no resource lists, and over 50% did not conduct staff training. For those who did conduct training, this usually consisted of emergency exit drills and training in the use of fire extinguishers. Eighty-six per cent of the respondents expressed a strong need for and interest in participating in a workshop addressing both disaster preparedness and recovery.

Based on the survey the committee designed a project for TAM that included sponsoring two workshops addressing disaster preparedness, response, and recovery, as well as producing a resource manual to assist in developing a site-specific disaster preparedness and recovery plan. Funding was sought and received from the Institute of Museum Services to help underwrite the project. Important corporate sponsorship of the project subsequently from Chubb Group of Insurance Companies and Blackmon-Mooring-Steamatic Catastrophe, Inc.

This manual is meant to serve as a guide for producing site-specific plans. The three-ring binder format was chosen so that material can be added as new information is published. Please note that some forms are duplicated in the Sample Plans and in the Forms and Supplementary sections of the manual. This is intentional for ease of use and ready access by topic.

This Resource Manual is meant to stand alone, as well as to serve as the foundation for the workshops to be presented in 1994 and 1995 at the TAM Annual Meetings. The Editors hope that it will enable readers to develop a thorough plan for their own institutions.

DISASTER PLANNING CASE STUDY -- WICHITA FALLS MUSEUM AND ART CENTER

THE EVENT

On April 10, 1979 the City of Wichita Falls, Texas was hit by a tornado of major proportions. Southwest of town, three smaller funnels joined to create one of the largest tornadoes on record. Even with advanced warning, over forty people were killed, dozens were injured, and hundreds of buildings, mostly homes, were destroyed as the storm crossed the city from west to east. This tornado was tracked on the ground for more than fifty miles.

The Wichita Falls Museum and Art Center is located in a park setting across from Midwestern State University. The Museum shares a boundary, along a pond, with the home of the President of the University. At the time the Museum was approximately 20,000 square feet, with exhibit spaces for art, science and history. There is also a planetarium and education wing with three classrooms. The balance of the building housed offices, storage, and work space. There was a staff of nine.

The Museum was on the north side of the storm track, and was hit at 6:05 p.m. By that time all employees had left for the day. The layout of the building is such that the Shipping & Receiving, Carpenter Shop, Exhibit Preparation Area, and Collection Storage are on the southwest corner. These areas were essentially undamaged. Elsewhere the destruction was severe. The roof of the rest of the structure was torn off, the planetarium, with new Spitz equipment, had collapsed, and the storefront entrance to the Museum was destroyed, as were the glass window walls of the classrooms. The rear wall of the structure at the southeast was blown out of vertical and plumb. The Museum landscape was destroyed, although in the entire scope of things this was a minor problem.

Of the nine employees, five were directly affected. The apartment complex where the Curator of Education lived was totally destroyed. She was immediately able to find her cat and salvage one suitcase of clothing, where upon she walked to safety. The Museum's secretary lost her house, her residence for over twenty years. For the most part, the balance of the damage sustained by staff was missing roofs. The Director was able to see the storm pass and was able to return to the Museum before emergency services could barricade and isolate the 20% of the community that was devastated.

INITIAL RESPONSE

At the time of the tornado, the Museum had a rudimentary disaster plan. This plan called for the disconnect of all utilities, plywood to "board up", protection of the collections, and a reporting mechanism for staff. However, when the time came, even this simple plan had to be revised to meet circumstances. Luckily for the community, the storm had severed most of the electrical transmission lines into town. This not only cut the power, but also prevented fires, which would have added to the problems. In another circumstance unusual for tornadoes, there was no significant rain. At the Museum, it was not necessary to cut off the flow of natural gas because the storm had taken the meter from the ground, leaving the line open. The first action taken was to barricade the area to keep automobile ignitions or careless smokers from creating an explosion. All of the utilities were buried, so there was still telephone service. Once the gas company was notified, they were quick in their response.

The second action was to walk the building, making notes about damage and ways of securing the collections and exhibits. The last thing done that first evening was to create a base of operations and place to camp out in Shipping & Receiving. For the first two weeks, overnight security and daytime cleanup was handled by members of a Boy Scout Explorers Post, one of whom worked for the Museum after school. The Museum came to rely upon these boys as vital to the recovery effort.

During the course of the first day, the Boy Scouts removed debris. Volunteers from the University Art Department, working with the Registrar, removed the art collection to the vault of the Savings and Loan. The Curator and Exhibit Technician planned for exhibit removal against the day it would inevitably rain, and total damage and removal priorities were assessed by the Director. The first weeks continued with these activities, except for two specific days where the whole staff helped those hit by the storm clean up or move. The main task for the Directory, besides supervising recovery, was to deal with insurance and to bring the original Contractor and Architect on board to begin reconstruction.

The community-wide nature of this disaster took much of the planned response out of our hands. The whole destruction area was cordoned off, with entry by permit only. This made it hard for volunteers to respond initially. The demand for construction materials meant that the Museum had to compete for limited stock. The loss of staff time, as several took care of their own personal disaster, severely hampered recovery, and the inability of at least one staff person to cope with the devastation and confusion lent yet one more roadblock to recovery.

RECOVERY AND RECONSTRUCTION

The concern by the Museum staff for their jobs and the community-wide nature of this disaster in part dictated the terms of the response. To keep staff employed and productive, the Registrar and collection management operations moved to a local savings and loan business where a spare office was offered. A private school in the immediate area was rented for the summer in order to continue the education program. This was funded by a National Endowment for the Arts grant that allowed for greatly expanded offerings at a time when other community activities for children were severely curtailed. National Endowment for the Humanities, Institute of Museum Services, and Sid Richardson Foundation grants allowed for the purchase of a temporary building and office equipment. This allowed normal business and membership activities to go forward, as well as providing a base for reconstruction administration. The balance of staff, the carpenter, exhibit technician, and maintenance person, were assigned various tasks from construction supervision to cleanup.

Two issues became paramount during the recovery and reconstruction. The first was insurance. The Museum used a local agent, and took care to update coverage every year--a lesson learned as a result of a fire in 1973. However, when this major disaster struck, we found that the Museum was still underinsured and faced with a co-insurance penalty that we could not afford. Through the efforts of our agent, and the fact that there had been annual reviews, this penalty was set aside and the insurance company provided full loss coverage. In the meantime, contributions to the recovery effort began to arrive, leading to the second issue.

The Wichita Falls Museum and Art Center had an active Long Range Planning Committee and a Long Range Plan that called for the expansion of the Museum. With the insurance problem solved and unsolicited contributions arriving daily, the Long Range Expansion Plan was activated, and the Museum launched a fund raising effort. In the midst of a disaster this might appear to be inappropriate; however, the nature of the catastrophe and the role of the Museum in the community were such that the Museum's comeback became a symbol of the spirit of recovery for the whole city.

LESSONS

Although the Wichita Falls tornado was a specific disaster in a specific place, several general concepts that relate to any emergency may be inferred.

In other glaring lessons learned is that disaster planning must clearly delineate the goals to be achieved during recovery. There must be direction, and objectives to achieve, past the initial reaction and cleanup. Based upon practical experience with this one specific disaster, the following became the recovery priorities.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, all that is known for sure is that your disaster will be different from every other disaster so, if you can, plan accordingly.

Larry Francell
September, 1993


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