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JUNE 2019 ■ www.ReporterNewspapers.net
Community | 3
Group helps cultural institutions plan for disaster recovery
BY JOHNRUCH
johnruch(a)reporternewspapers.net
Among the millions watching in hor
ror as Paris’s Notre-Dame burned on
April 15 were caretakers of Atlanta’s his
toric cathedrals and a group of volun
teers who help cultural institutions re
cover from disaster.
Buclchead’s Roman Catholic Cathe
dral of Christ the King doesn’t have the
800-year history and global stature of
Notre-Dame. But it’s the mother church
of the Atlanta Archdiocese and home to
eight decades of records of births, bap
tisms and marriages.
The Archdiocese preserves and pro
tects its historic documents and artifacts
in a Smyrna facility. Angelique Richard
son, the director of archives and records
at the Archdiocese, says that seeing the
Notre-Dame fire got her office thinking.
“It did occur to us to send out a memo
to our parishes,” she said. The message:
“We are here to archive your historical
records.”
Of course, archives, libraries and
museums can succumb to disaster, too.
That point was hammered home by an
other recent fire, the 2018 blaze that de
stroyed much of the National Museum
of Brazil. Richardson is among the cul
tural institution experts involved in the
Heritage Emergency Response Alliance
(HERA) Atlanta, a local chapter of a na
tional movement that aims to prevent
such disasters and to provide expert ad
vice on salvaging treasures when they do
happen.
“It’s all about making connections
and providing resources,” says Chris
tine Wiseman, head of the Digital Servic
es Department at the Atlanta University
Center Robert W Woodruff Library, and
a founding steering committee member
of HERA Atlanta. The group has helped
Georgia institutions recover from such
disasters as last year’s Hurricane Mi
chael.
In metro Atlanta, religious buildings
typically meet modern fire codes, though
a church can present unique mainte
nance challenges. Rev. Samuel Candler,
the dean of the Episcopal Cathedral of St.
Philip in Buclchead,
“At the Cathedral of St. Philip, we def
initely have sprinklers and modern fire
safety equipment installed, through
out our older and newer facilities,” Can
dler said in a written statement. “But the
Notre-Dame fire reminds all of us that
the stewardship and maintenance of
large cathedrals, and of all sacred desti
nations, requires constant support and
energy. We do not apologize for spend
ing money, and time, and energy, and re
sources daily in the stewardship of these
sacred destinations, and it is our hon
or and mission to do so.... We know that
the Church is people, but we also know
that we people are inspired and moved
by physical spaces, sacred destinations,
that gather our prayers and inspire our
prayers.”
For many churches, internal records
are the main documents to preserve and
they’re often stored in a fireproof safe.
Truly historic records and artifacts may
find a safer home, such as the Catholic
Archdiocese’s Office of Archives and Re
cords. That facility has temperature and
humidity controls and a fire suppression
system, according to the Archdiocese.
It houses such objects as chalices, vest
ments and ceremonial swords, and his
torical documents going back to early
Catholic settlers of the 1820s, according
to Richardson.
But even a well-prepared museum or
library can succumb to a major storm,
fire or other disaster. Efforts toward larg-
er-scale, inter-institutional planning
date back to the 1990s, when the Feder
al Emergency Management Agency and
a nonprofit called Heritage Preservation
formed the Heritage Emergency Nation
al Task Force in the wake of a major hur
ricane and earthquake, with the goal of
providing expertise and assistance to cul
tural organizations.
A similar, more localized program
called the Alliance for Response start
ed up in 2003. The destruction in New
Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005
showed the need for such programs, says
Wiseman of HERA Atlanta.
“It’s really grown out of Katrina,” she
said.
HERA Atlanta formed in 2007. It’s still
an informal group of institutional volun
teers with about 125 members from the
metro area and, increasingly, statewide.
Buclchead’s Atlanta History Center and
Brookhaven’s Oglethorpe University are
among the institutions that have been
represented in the group over the years.
In times of major disaster, the group can
use the Georgia Emergency Management
Agency’s communication resources to
coordinate advice or volunteer help for
damaged cultural institutions.
In 2008, HERA Atlanta got an ear
ly test. A tornado hit downtown Atlan
ta. Among the damaged structures was
the historic building housing the Atlan
ta Daily World, the city’s oldest African
American newspaper.
“We saw them as a cultural site,” said
Wiseman. “So we actually gathered a
whole bunch of volunteers and spent
a couple days packing out records for
them.”
Today, HERA Atlanta holds education
al programs once or twice year, such as
a recent case study of a potentially di
sastrous flood at Emory University’s Mi
chael C. Carlos Museum. And it continues
to provide advice to institutions in need,
such as the Albany Museum of Art, which
suffered major wind and flooding dam
age in a 2017 storm.