Disaster Plan

Staff of the Condé-Charlotte Museum Spanish Garden discusses lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina and disaster recovery. Photo: Sean Clifford, NCPTT.

Staff of the Condé-Charlotte Museum Spanish Garden discusses lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina and disaster recovery. Photo: Sean Clifford, NCPTT.

Creating a disaster plan before a disaster strikes can be of great assistance in mitigating damage and loss.  There are online tools such as dPlan that provide templates to help institutions develop a customized plan.  Disaster plans assist in identifying risks and create  procedures to follow if an event occurs. The best disaster plans in the world will not be of assistance if no one knows about it or it is not maintained and updated! Planning for your collections should be done at the same time as preparing a plan for your building or site.  Prevention and protection needs would be determined during the planning process and could save time and resources when a disaster strikes.  For additional information please refer to Collections section.

What Your Disaster Plan Can Provide

Individuals

  • Contact information and common locations for all family members
  • Meeting place for family members (locally and out of town)
  • An out-of-town contact may be helpful to facilitate communication between family members
  • Phone, coins, or prepaid phone card to contact family members or out-of-town contact
  • Text messages sometimes be sent over the cell networks even when calls can not go through
  • Subscribe to an alert services that may be available locally
  • Stay informed and use common sense when deciding on evacuating or staying
    • Follow any state or federal evacuation orders

    Institutions

    • Facility Evaluations: What is Where (e.g. shut-off vales)
      • Include Floor Plans
    • Oustide Emergency Personnel (police, fire, utilities, hospitals)
    • Holdings Priorities
      • By Format: microfilm, paper, magnetic media
      • By Subject: Civil War, Colonial documents
      • By Location/Floor:  1st floor higher priority than attic
    • Inventory Lists
    • Outside Sources for Assistance
      • Vendors
      • Consultants
    • Insurance Information and Expenditure Authorization
    • Response Procedures
      • Phone Contact Tree
      • Player Function. Responsibilities
        • Coordination and Organization
      • Supplies on Hand
      • “How to” Salvage Specific Types of Materials