The Vermont Arts and Culture Disaster and Resilience Network was formed in May 2019 to create synergy between artists, cultural heritage and arts groups and emergency managers to be better prepared for and recover from disasters such as the pandemic and, most recently, severe flooding. On Thursday, the group hosted a webinar intended to help Vermont’s arts and culture sectors understand what resources are available for flood recovery.
The group requested a virtual workshop from the Heritage Emergency National Task Force, co-sponsored by FEMA and the Smithsonian Institution, which works to protect, salvage and preserve cultural heritage and arts after natural disasters or emergencies. Task Force Coordinator Lori Foley said the meeting’s goal was to help Vermont arts and culture groups access federal disaster aid.
“Funding for cultural institutions and arts organizations is a challenge in the best of times,” Foley said. “Following a disaster, you're having to address multiple competing demands: reopening to the public to provide your normal services, repairing structural damage, treating damaged collection items and finding funding to do all of the above.”
Vermont Historical Records Program Director and Resilience Network organizer Rachel Onuf says they quickly reached out to determine potential flood damage to the state’s cultural resources.
“We were able to both very quickly, following the lead of Vermont Libraries which is one of our steering committee members, reach out to organizations to find out about damage and potential impacts to both buildings and collections and were able to help support their efforts and have materials in freezers right now and are talking to vendors to get estimates and kind of supporting them through that longer recovery process after the Immediate stabilization,” said Onuf.
FEMA Public Assistance Infrastructure Branch Director Timothy Baker told attendees that when applying for assistance there should be documentation of what an organization did to try to protect documents and collections.
“If you had to sandbag your front door, if you felt that your collections were in danger and you moved them to higher ground or on the second floor, whatever efforts you did during the event to protect the building, protect the contents, I'm hoping that that you have some documentation pertaining to that,” Baker said.” Assess your damage. Then start looking at your insurance. Review everything and then notify them to start your claim damage. And then as you're going through that compile your invoices and expenditures. We want those invoices so that my staff can get it in for the damages, the scope of work and the overall costs of it.”
Baker noted that any recovery and restoration of collections are handled on a case-by-case basis.
“We'll look at how we can help you or where we can help you,” Baker said. “I can't say for sure that we can. It's going to depend on the materials that you have that were affected on how it's stabilized and how it's cleaned or I don’t want to say restored, but mainly cleaned or salvaged. Salvage is probably not even a good word. But how you get it back so it can be handled, saved, decontaminated. And we're trying to get it back to pre-disaster.”
Disaster loans are also available from the Small Business Administration. Office of Disaster Response and Resilience Public Affairs Specialist Carl Dombeck outlined eligibility requirements.
“What you're going to need, and this is a partial list, articles of incorporation, if of course you're Incorporated,” Dombeck said. “If you're not that doesn't apply. Bylaws. Charter. And this fourth one is vital. It doesn't have to be one they provide at the beginning, but we must have it before we can complete processing and close any loan we offer: a board of director’s resolution giving approval to apply to the SBA for a disaster loan.”
