CAM e-News Monthly Museum Poll

November 2007 Museum Poll Recap: Is Your Museum Prepared to Face a Natural Disaster?

In light of the recent wildfires in Southern California, CAM asked CAM e-News subscribers if their museums had an emergency preparedness plan in place and trained staff or volunteers to implement it.

Less than half of the respondents (41.7%) indicated they do have an emergency plan in place with trained staff or volunteers. A quarter of respondents (25%) said they need to develop a plan. Meanwhile, one-sixth (16.7%) claimed they either have a plan but need to revisit it or do not know anything about their plan if they have one. These numbers suggest that the majority of museums are not prepared for a natural disaster, either because they do not have an up-to-date emergency plan or have not adequately trained or informed their staff members. Here are some comments from our subscribers:

Thanks to our amazing Collections Manager and some interns, we have a Disaster Plan that will assist us greatly in meeting our needs (or the needs of others) in the event of a disaster. Three of the six staff went through our city's Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training and the rest will do it next year! It feels good to have it under our belts. All we need to do now is to practice it! -- Anonymous

We have an adequate plan for fire, and will have a much improved fire detection system soon. Our museum is a three story unreinforced brick building built in 1877 which lost its bell tower in the 1906 earthquake. Another temblor of that magnitude could easily take down the whole building after this many years. We are seeking federal funds for an earthquake retrofit. I have directed staff that in the event of a large earthquake to run for the door, as we would rather have them be one of the first responders and rescuers, rather than one of the victims! -- Anonymous

Consider it luck, but our area has not been hit with wildfires, floods, earthquakes, or any other disaster. This being said, we have not taken immediate action as the urgency is not there. -- Karen Mehring, Folsom History Museum

We are trained and our staff would do just fine but I bet they don't believe it. So I guess it's a wake up call to management to revisit the plan. -- Anonymous

We have an overall emergency preparedness plan, but it is something that I think needs to constantly be revisited. Oftentimes that gets overlooked until something like the wildfires occur. -- Anonymous

Many years ago we created an emergency plan for the art gallery, I think originally as part of our AAM accreditation planning (we just got re-accredited for the third time). The original plan was before my time here, but I did update it at some point. Then, about 4 years ago, the College (of which we are a part) hired a Health and Safety manager for the entire campus, and she created a comprehensive plan for the College, integrating the Gallery plan into the overall plan. I am a "building coordinator" and thus, part of an overall emergency preparedness team and have regular training throughout the year (I'm now certified for first aid and CPR among other things; I've been doing this 3 years now). I make sure that staff, volunteers and students are up to date on our emergency plan on a yearly basis. -- Anonymous

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