This month the Emergency Committee is launching an ongoing series of interviews with people working in the field of emergency preparedness and response. Follow our series to learn more about the world of emergency preparedness, new initiatives and developments, and how our colleagues are working to expand and improve preparedness within the cultural heritage community.
Our first interview subject is Lori Foley, coordinator of the Heritage Emergency National Task Force in FEMA’s Office of Environmental Planning & Historic Preservation, who shared her path into emergency management, the challenges and successes she has experienced, and thoughts about the future of the field.
Could you tell us about your own background, as well as about your role at the Heritage Emergency National Task Force?
My path to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was anything but direct. I was an elementary school teacher very briefly, then I pursued a career in trade book publishing as a production manager. After 15 years, I needed a change, enrolling in the hand bookbinding program at North Bennet Street School in Boston. After graduation, I established an in-house bindery at a Harvard University library, where I was introduced to disaster planning as one facet of preservation. That led to nearly a decade in and then at the helm of Preservation Services at the Northeast Document Conservation Center.
I started at NEDCC a week before Sept. 11, 2001 and was quickly drawn into providing technical assistance – and a listening ear – to cultural stewards at collecting institutions who wanted to know how to save their soot-covered collections. I staffed the 24/7 hotline, helping individuals and cultural stewards address large and small emergencies. I participated in coordination calls convened by the private nonprofit Heritage Preservation, which at the time co-sponsored the Heritage Emergency National Task Force (HENTF) with FEMA. My last day at NEDCC was March 11, 2011, the day of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
I became the Vice President of Emergency Programs at Heritage Preservation in 2011 and my remit included coordinating response by HENTF members following major disasters. I credit the late Jane Long, my predecessor at Heritage Preservation, for creating the Alliance for Response (AFR), an initiative that connects the cultural community with the emergency management community. These communities have separate vocabularies and following a disaster, they implement different priorities, procedures and policies. These two communities need to understand each other and work together to protect our cultural heritage. AFR is now administered by FAIC and I’ve incorporated this concept in HENTF, which is now co-sponsored by FEMA’s Office of Environmental Planning & Historic Preservation and the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative.
As an emergency manager at FEMA and the coordinator of HENTF, I work in that unique space where cultural heritage and emergency management intersect. I think of myself as a connector of dots – following disasters, connecting FEMA and our federal partners with the cultural institutions and arts organizations that have suffered damage so they can secure federal funding to recover; connecting cultural institutions with HENTF’s 62 members (federal agencies and national service organizations), able to provide technical expertise and guidance in the arts, culture, historic preservation, emergency management and tribal affairs; on “blue-sky days,” connecting state cultural agencies with their state emergency management agency to ensure that the arts and culture sector is included in disaster and mitigation planning; and connecting cultural stewards and emergency managers in HENTF’s Heritage Emergency and Response Training (HEART), a week-long program that helps them understand each other’s worlds and learn how to work together when disaster strikes.
Can you share some of the lessons you’ve learned in your time working with HENTF? What are some of the most successful strategies you’ve implemented in your work?
Raising awareness about the importance and value of protecting cultural heritage takes time. And patience. And infinite optimism. Outside of FEMA. Find the low-hanging fruit -- emergency managers who “get it” are the best advocates to convince their colleagues that building relationships with cultural stewards can make a huge difference in helping people before, during and after disasters. Within FEMA, build relationships with program staff so they know how HENTF can support their mission. When disaster strikes, they know to turn to HENTF for technical assistance and guidance to assist institutions that have suffered damage and disaster survivors desperate to save their family treasures. Every disaster is an opportunity to foster relationships among cultural institutions so they can build back better – together – and an opportunity to introduce the arts & culture sector to emergency managers so they are better prepared to work with this sector in the future. I take every opportunity to speak with emergency managers and cultural stewards about HENTF and the protection of cultural heritage at meetings, webinars and conferences.
What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve seen in your work in emergency management and preparedness? What do you think the cultural heritage community and institutions need to be doing to meet these challenges?
The biggest challenge is raising awareness about the importance and value of protecting cultural heritage. Cultural institutions and arts organizations are not always on the radar of emergency managers, from the local level all the way up to the federal level. When disaster strikes a community, recovery of cultural institutions and arts organizations is vital for the economic, social, artistic, religious and civic life of that community. If these institutions don’t recover, a once vibrant and thriving community may never fully recover. But it’s not just emergency managers who need to step up to the plate. Cultural stewards should not wait to be invited to the table. Cultural institutions and arts organizations at the local level need to participate in local hazard mitigation planning and emergency operations planning to make their sector visible and their input valuable. In the best-case scenario, these organizations have a seat at the emergency operations center so they can support their sector when disaster strikes a community, state or territory.
How have cultural heritage emergency preparedness efforts evolved to meet increasing risk to sites and collections from climate change? From your perspective, how do you see the emergency response field changing in the next 10 years?
Disaster planning by collecting institutions and continuity of operations planning by arts organizations have long been promoted by regional conservation/preservation centers, national service organizations and federal cultural funding agencies. More and more organizations can state that they have a disaster plan with staff trained to implement it. But I’m concerned that organizations without a plan are doubly vulnerable – to a sudden emergency or natural disaster and to the gradual but no less dangerous effects of climate change.
A number of climate resilience strategies have been put forth to address the impact of climate change on cultural resources. Boston’s Green Ribbon Commission has developed a peer-driven, collaborative planning process for 10 of its Cultural Institutions Working Group members that will result in individualized climate action plans for each. The National Park Service developed its Cultural Resources Climate Change Strategy to help cultural stewards manage impacts to the cultural resources in their care. And FAIC’s Held in Trust initiative, a 2022 cooperative agreement with the National Endowment for the Humanities, is building a suite of climate resilience resources and tools to help cultural institutions and heritage sites navigate climate resilience planning. While I don’t have a crystal ball to predict the future, I envision a nation in which cultural institutions and arts organizations are integrated into emergency preparedness, response and post-disaster recovery and with their unique ability to reach out to a wide range of audiences, are helping people understand and address climate change.
What advice would you give to recent graduates or individuals at an entry-level position who are interested in contributing to emergency preparedness and response for cultural heritage?
It took a long time for me to discover a vocation that combined my love of arts and culture with the opportunity to help others. Join an Alliance for Response network. Can’t find one in your area? Think about collaborating with local cultural stewards – or even with your local emergency manager – to launch a network. If you work at a cultural institution, volunteer to lead a team that develops your institutional disaster plan. Ask your local emergency manager to help you identify local and regional hazards that should be addressed in that plan. Invite your local emergency manager and first responders to an event at your facility. Offer them a tour of your facility. Work with your leadership to enable first responders to conduct an exercise at your institution. Learn all you can about climate resilience and climate action planning so you can become a subject matter expert. And seize every opportunity to raise awareness of the importance and value in protecting our cultural heritage. I look to you to forge a new path forward in an increasingly climate-challenged world.
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