It may seem like it's hard to plan for a natural disaster or an emergency. But organizations like Performing Arts Readiness (PAR) have made it their mission to help people in the music community — and beyond — do just that.
Tom Clareson is the Project Director of Performing Arts Readiness project, which is an initiative funded by the Mellon Foundation that is dedicated to helping performing arts organizations prepare for emergencies, protect their assets, and sustain operations.
Similarly to FEMA, PAR utilizes all-hazards planning. As Clareson details, that means natural disasters — everything from floods, to earthquakes, to fires — but also encompasses manmade disasters like power outages and active shooter situations.
The Performing Arts Readiness website serves as a hub of resources dedicated to educating communities on the importance of being proactive in planning for these potential disasters. Resources include access to grants, webinars, sample emergency plans, and more. Clareson notes that the National Coalition for Arts' Preparedness & Emergency Response (NCAPER) is another great resource for the arts and creative communities to learn more about disaster response and recovery.
In addition to those resources, Clareson outlined six ways the music community can best plan for unexpected disasters and emergency situations.
"Make sure that you archive your legacy."
We've started to focus a lot more on the idea of making sure that there's succession planning in an organization, or making sure that there's legacy planning for individual artists or bands. How are they going to keep everything from their business records, to their music, to any kind of programmatic materials that they have?
We try to look at it sort of holistically. It's thinking about those areas and developing plans in those areas, and knowing who the resources are and who can help you in the time of need for sure.
The most important thing is to have an inventory of what instruments you have, the computers that you might have, the recording equipment, and things in the studio. Also backing up recordings — there was a show about the Wu Tang Clan on Hulu, and in one of the episodes they talked about the fact that there was a flood, and their master recordings got washed away and were underwater. There wasn't a backup, and they had to go and recreate all of that music.
Inventory is one of the very first things you can do. Starting that right now is important.
"You should prioritize situational awareness when you get into a building ."
Know where the exits are, look up and see if they have any kind of fire suppression — fire sprinklers, fire extinguishers. Check to see if there is security. Really get yourself used to the building when you walk in so that if you have to get out, you know what to do.
Whether you're walking into your home or whether you're walking into a concert hall, do this everywhere you perform. Think about those safety features and then get a plan together.
There are some good things that FEMA and some of the local state emergency management agencies have on doing your own family plan or doing your own individual or home plan. Those are really important — just to take a little bit of time to be prepared just in general.
"Know everything that you want to take with you if you have to act fast."
We've talked to people who have been unfortunately victimized by these California wildfires. They've said that when the wind turned, they had five minutes to get out of their house. One person said they had wanted to take their photos and pets, but they forgot their cashbox from the performance that happened that night and the money burned up.
I've been reading stories about the Mariposa fire, the fire that's happening here near Yosemite right now, and people are saying that same exact thing. "We had five minutes to get out, and we had to know what to grab." Sometimes people talk about having a "go-bag," where it's full of the most important things they have that they would just grab and run with. That's not a bad idea.
"Planning so that you can be self-sufficient for 48-72 hours is really, really important."
911 and FEMA are doing the best job that they can in emergencies, but there are a lot of people that they are trying to get to. You could be in a rural area, or you might be 40 miles of Western Kentucky that's been damaged by tornadoes, or downtown Nashville or Houston that's underwater. Planning so that you can be self-sufficient for 48 hours or 72 hours is really, really important, because in some cases, there's just not enough emergency responders to go around and help everyone.
"Disaster preparedness doesn't have to be expensive."
You can get some safety and backup systems, and things like that, but the first expense you need to think of is mainly a time expense. It's just taking the time to plan and taking the time to do that inventory. Taking the time to go on the FEMA website and look at the family emergency plan.
You might have a plan that you can go in for a year, and then all of a sudden, a tree branch breaks and it comes through your roof — which happened twice in my former home. You think about what you need to do the next time. You set up the plan once, and then you can come back and look at it every year.
"Being prepared can help you stay safe and alive, and continue to create, and continue to create your legacy."
It also can help the people who are around you at your performance, and the people at the venue. So whether it's a fire, or a flood, or a power outage, or an active shooter, if you know some of these steps, you'll be better prepared for something like this to happen.
These things are occurring more often. Especially with the climate crisis, we feel that people are going to need to have some basic thoughts about disaster preparedness in mind, because a larger and larger percentage of us probably are going to have to deal with them.