Guidelines for the preparation of a Disaster plan

In the course of visits and in discussion with the members of courses, and in the aftermath of disasters and incidents involving damage (e.g., the flooding in Brig in 1993, the fire in the Junkerngasse in Berne in 1997, and so on), the PCP section found that basic precautions appropriate to immovable cultural property had been neither planned nor taken. This was true also of some buildings with important movable cultural property (museums, archives, libraries, churches and so on).

In view of this situation, the PCP section decided to prepare a checklist which is intended to allow the owners of cultural property substantially to limit the consequences of damaging incidents.

The objective of this document is to make owners of cultural property aware that there are often hazards present in the building itself which are a threat both to the building and to the collections which it contains. The risk can be substantially reduced with simple and inexpensive planning and precautionary measures.

The document is conceived as a checklist and can be downloaded hereafter. It will always need to be adapted to local requirements.

Cultural institutions which have already prepared a disaster plan should find the present guidelines a good means of establishing whether any details of the security measures taken can be improved.
The work of the Protection of Cultural Property Service staff is made a great deal easier wherever there is a disaster plan.