Having passed through Hurricane Harvey with an emergency team onsite 24/7 to monitor and manage everything throughout the duration of the storm, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston has shared information about its protocol for storm protection.
This information could prove helpful and encouraging to other arts institutions. A lesson to be learned: best to have an emergency plan and protocols in place ahead of possible natural disasters … and practice.
Here are some elements of the MFAH emergency protocol:
- a hurricane-preparedness team
- storm-planning measures to secure the buildings
- sandbags (the MFAH has thousands of sandbags, each filled with sand the museum stores and re-cycles)
- emergency water pumps (sump pumps)
- floodgates to be activated as needed (the MFAH floodgates are house-made and 24-inches high)
- preparation of a disaster-recovery website
- a 24/7 emergency team to be stationed on site to monitor everything through the duration of the storm
- the MFAH crew includes more than 30 people, each with a list of emergency contacts, including first and second responders, printed on a slip of waterproof Tyvek in their pockets. the team splits 18-hour shifts.
- engineers
- art handlers
- IT
- security guards
- the chief technology officer (Shemon Bar-Tal)
- the chief of building operations (Mike Pierce)
- the chief operating officer (Willard Holmes)
- the MFAH crew includes more than 30 people, each with a list of emergency contacts, including first and second responders, printed on a slip of waterproof Tyvek in their pockets. the team splits 18-hour shifts.
- relocation of works | works of art that are in potentially vulnerable locations to be moved as needed
- a sense of humor, perspective, and humility
- “Mother Nature and water are strange. You say, ‘I’m OK, I’ve got a floodgate, I’m good,’ and then she comes around the back door!” (Willard Holmes, COO)
- “I think we’re really good on the broad strokes, but you can never just assume that the next storm is going to be like the one that just passed. If the last four days have taught us anything, it’s that it’s not over until it’s over.” (Willard Holmes, COO)
The permanent collection of the MFAH includes 65,000 paintings, sculptures and other objects at the main campus and at Bayou Bend and Rienzi, two historical estates along Buffalo Bayou, the city’s central waterway.
The museum is also responsible for several hundred masterpieces from other institutions, on loan for shows such as the current “Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernization, 1910-1950.”
Paint the Revolution includes works by Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Antonio Ruiz, Alfredo Ramos Martínez, María Izquierdo, José Clemente Orozco, Tina Modotti, Adolfo Best Maugard, and Saturnino Herrán.
See:
“How Harvey unfolded at MFAH” | Molly Glentzer, Houston Chronicle, 1 September 2017
“This Is How Museums In and Around Houston Prepared for Tropical Storm Harvey” | Priscilla Frank, Huffington Post, 1 September 2017
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH)
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