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Architectural Conservation and Disaster Preparedness & Response

By Amy Elizabeth Uebel for the Architecture Specialty Group (ASG)

When a natural disaster strikes, the consequences can be devastating for the individual home or business owner. The first priorities relate to basic human needs, such as saving lives, caring for the injured, providing shelter and safe food and water sources. These efforts transition into activities related to returning the community to a sense of normalcy: restoring utilities and services, clearing damage and debris, and assessing and stabilizing structures for future repairs. Although many of the early response efforts are coordinated and managed by a local emergency response team, much of the work is left to individual property owners. People who may still be reeling from a traumatic experience soon face a rebuilding effort that involves a tapestry of structures of various ages, styles, and uses. Many of these privately-owned structures are, or can be, listed in the National Register of Historic Places and are considered important components to the fabric of the community. This article will discuss the general process of a long-term recovery effort, the planning that is involved in pre-disaster efforts, the people and organizations involved, and how the conservator works in conjunction with these larger efforts. The perspective of local historic districts, private homeowners, and business owners is the primary focus.

Disaster Preparation

Presidential Policy Directive 8 directs the development of a national preparedness goal. The intent of the directive is to strengthen the security and resiliency of communities through preparation planning. The responsibility for this goal is shared by all levels of government, the private and non-profit sectors, and individual citizens. Each region differs slightly on how they will address the recovery and restoration of their community post-disaster. The National Disaster Recovery Framework (NDRF) recommends that communities address potential impacts from a disaster through a series of operations that include: A preparedness campaign, short term recovery, intermediate recovery, and long-term recovery. At the core of the NDRF is the empowerment of individuals and local leadership to make the choices that are most appropriate for their own communities. It also promotes and encourages partnerships and collaboration between public and private sectors. A locally developed and written Hazard Mitigation Plan is a product of this framework that combines expertise from many local sectors and creates a planning document that will act as a roadmap for a community to rebuild.

Hazard Mitigation Plans, Disaster Recovery Plans, and other similar disaster preparation activities are commonplace amongst larger cultural institutions, tribal governments, and local municipalities but smaller organizations and some local governments may not have any such resource—or may have something that is out of date. These documents take a considerable amount of time, expertise, and resources to create. In the absence of such a document, a post-disaster recovery will rely on larger state or national practices that may or may not be tailored to their own community and circumstances.

Groups Involved in Local Disaster Response There are many groups involved in disaster response and planning, and a network of heritage responders continues to grow and develop across the country. Groups involved in both pre-planning and response include, but are not limited to, cultural heritage professionals, public institutions, professional organizations, natural resource professionals, major local industries’ representatives, local planning departments, local emergency response officials, and government agencies. Each group has a specific role in the planning and long-term recovery process and must work together to ensure all priorities are satisfactorily addressed. Some of these professionals may have experience working with historic resources, but the majority will not. Many will have differing priorities, including life safety, ecological safety, the creation of more resilient communities, or economic vitality and infrastructure. Fortunately, it is becoming more common for cultural resource professionals to be included in plan development in communities with large historic districts and/or heritage tourism. Post-disaster, state, local, and federal agencies will assist individuals in the recovery process. This aid can take the form of the federal and state disaster relief funding, small business administration loans, and disaster assistance improvement programs. For major disasters involving impacts to cultural resources, FEMA teams deployed to a local community will include cultural resource specialists—both from among FEMA staff and, when needed, from other federal agencies like the National Park Service (NPS) or Institute of Museums and Library Services (IMLS)—to provide the initial assistance and technical support to local communities. The federal role during these deployments can remain high level, and these professionals are not able to provide direct assistance to the contractors and homeowners repairing their historic resources. Other public and private organizations, like the Heritage First Responders, State and Tribal Historic Preservation Offices, the National Trust, and a variety of others, can fill the gap and provide technical support to the communities affected. Complicating Factors for Cultural Resources in Disaster Response The reconstruction and preservation of privately owned historic resources in a community falls to individuals, general contractors, and restoration professionals. This work can involve anything from reconstruction in areas of structural damage, to cleaning and mold mitigation due to water intrusion, to the replacement of irreparably damaged historic surfaces. All work must meet certain basic standards for livability and can be subject to review and inspection from local planning commissions, code enforcement, federal oversight, etc. Following a significant disaster event, the demand for qualified construction professionals often exceeds the capacity of well-known local businesses. Planning documents that serve as a roadmap to recovery understandably lean on published research and studies, many of which are focused on contemporary construction materials. The reliance on (and ready availability of information about) contemporary architectural materials can leave the impression that conservation treatments hamper efforts to make a community resilient to climate events. Instead, the lack of readily accessible literature about historic and traditional materials hinders collaboration with non-preservation professionals. Providing plain-language succinct guidance to property owners about good practices for their historic buildings, finishes, and furnishings is a critical need.

Groups assessing damage. Courtesy the National Park Service, Technical Preservation Services.

Government agencies and non-profit organizations attempt to provide needed technical support but are constrained by time and the depth of their own resources. As a result, home and business owners are left with little to no technical support on the most effective (and historically appropriate) method to return their home and business back to service. Individuals are left to do their own research, relying on internet searches, conversations with neighbors, product manufacturers, and available contractors to help them make decisions.

Modern codes, which vary by state and region, can be confusing for the owners of historic structures and may be perceived as anti-conservation, though they are not inherently intended as such. Codes are written to reflect current building practices and assist in the creation of safe, accessible structures. Due to the wide range of manufacturing techniques for historic building materials, the interpretation of codes in relation to historic buildings generally requires a preservation professional who can translate contemporary construction techniques, materials, fire safety, ventilation, and utilities to a historic structure.

Last, but not least, redevelopment of historic properties often combines many economic resources including, but not limited to insurance, grants, and loans. Often these funding sources have specific requirements that must be followed during remediation, i.e., minimum square footage, energy efficiency, hazardous material mitigations, etc. These requirements are intended to build resiliency in communities and ensure that there are healthy and safe spaces to inhabit, but often these requirements are most easily achieved using modern materials, for which there is greater access to information and treatment methodologies. To balance both modern requirements and the preservation of historic resources, any designer/practitioner must be knowledgeable about the materials and structures they are working with and must have a comprehensive understanding of modern building codes and regulations.

For example, program regulations like those associated with federal flood insurance can be strong drivers in choices that property owners make related to recovery and repairs pre- and post-disaster. Compliance or non-compliance with flood insurance requirements impacts monthly or annual premiums that property owners pay to be insured. Virtually all flood insurance is derived from the federal government (even when purchased from a private insurance company) and borrowers of federally backed mortgages for properties within flood hazard areas are required to maintain flood insurance. As part of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), FEMA has published information regarding the resiliency of flood damage-resistant materials and requirements for the use of such materials in buildings located in flood hazard areas. Understandably, this document prioritizes dense, impervious building materials (such as brick, tile, concrete) while discouraging the use of porous and organic building materials (wood, plaster, fabrics). Like building codes, this document focuses on modern materials and construction methods and does not address historic materials. The National Park Service (NPS) and Army Corps of Engineers are working to address this absence in technical literature by replicating portions of the FEMA testing on historic building materials and assemblies.

Technical Resources for Communities

As the recovery process continues months—and sometimes years—after an event, professionals in a wide variety of fields must work jointly to rebuild their communities. To those not familiar with the cultural heritage field, historic materials can be enigmatic, and a lack of replicable data makes them difficult to assess, resulting in many entities choosing to focus on the most assured methods to guarantee the safety, stability, accessibility, and economic feasibility of a project.

Currently, architectural conservators and cultural heritage professionals must work with the construction community to successfully remediate historic structures. Residents and business owners may not be aware of the strain that some modern products and repair methods can place on a historic structure or are not familiar with viable alternative options. For example, chlorine bleach is a widely recommended cleaning product following a flood and is used extensively on all types of materials during cleaning and recovery. However, chlorine bleach will bleach surfaces and is less effective at killing biological growth on porous surfaces than other products.

Resources that help affected communities navigate the remediation process include but are not limited to, the National Trust’s Disaster Relief and Recovery, FEMA, and the National Park Service. Each serve as repositories of information for the non-professional to guide decision-making in the choice of products, treatments, methods, and materials to use after an event. For the professionals, the Foundation for Advancement in Conservation’s National Heritage Responders (NHR) and the Association for Preservation Technology’s Disaster Response Initiative Task Group (DRI) continue to support and promote training and guidance on the planning and response to disaster related hazards. The American Institute for Conservation (AIC) provides a network of conservation professionals for various types of materials through its Specialty Groups and Networks that are accessible through the Find a Professional tool but are less organized as specialists of historic architecture and its materials.

The Heritage Emergency National Task Force (HENTF) exists to bridge this gap between cultural institutions and disaster management. For example, with Hurricane Ian in Florida this past September, HENTF recognized that private individuals were likely to lose many of their personal photos and other papers due to damage from flood and rain. In response, they activated their Save Your Family Treasures (SYFT) program in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution. Under Emergency Support Function #11, which supports natural and cultural resources in times of declared disasters, professional conservators were requested by FEMA and were sourced throughout the federal government, with individuals from DOI, NPS, and the Smithsonian all working to aid citizens at FEMA disaster recovery centers. These professionals worked with the public by demonstrating conservation techniques for paper, textiles and art. Equivalent demonstrations for heritage building materials could be possible using Emergency Support Function #11 of FEMA (ESF #11) but have yet to be employed via this sort of response activity.

Easy access to knowledge on the proper cleaning and treatment techniques remains elusive for many communities that cannot afford to bring in professional conservators or heritage professionals. Manufacturers will often promise specific results and state that their product can be applied on historic surfaces, but there is currently no way for the layperson to critically evaluate all the necessary literature and determine the most appropriate method in their unique situation. Conservators can and do fill this knowledge gap when they are part of project teams, though they are not always affordable, available, or able to work within the highly compressed schedule that a post-disaster recovery generally requires.

Many organizations such as F/AIC, APT, NPS, the Army Corps of Engineers, and Building Resilient Solutions (BRS) are working to supplement current knowledge on historic building materials with information that includes scholarly reviews on the performance, durability, and repair of historic materials. However, mechanisms to disseminate this information remain in development. Communication tools, such as quick fact sheets, videos or wikis, can aide in the initial stages of a disaster response but have yet to be developed for the general public. While appreciation and understanding of the value that historic structures have in the local community is growing, a communication void remains between the general public and the conservation community on the most appropriate way to rebuild a community while preserving the historic fabric that makes it unique.

—Amy Elizabeth Uebel, ASG Chair, Technical Preservation Services, National Park Service, amyelizabeth_uebel@nps.gov

Further Information

FIMA (Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration). 2008. Technical Bulletin 2: Flood Damage-Resistant Materials Requirements for Buildings Located in Special Flood Hazard Areas in Accordance with the National Flood Insurance Program. Washington, DC: FEMA-FIMA. https://www.fema.gov/emergency-managers/risk-management/building-science/national-flood-insurance-technical-bulletins 

Eggleston, Jenifer, Jennifer C. Parker, Mary F. Streigel, Peter B. Stynoski, and Jennifer Wellock. 2021. “Testing the Flood Resilience of Traditional Building Assemblies.” APT Bulletin: The Journal of Preservation Technology, 52: 1.

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