The first thing is have an emergency plan. The second is to make sure it’s available when you need it. Bob Joly at the St Johnsbury Athenaeum carries his in his wallet.
The outline for the plan Bob uses comes from the State Archivists’ website. Here’s a brief description of the plan’s purpose from the Council of State Archivists site, below. CoSA also sells tyvek pockets to keep the plan dry.
The Pocket Response Plan (PReP) is intended to be customized for each institution and individual staff member. It is printed on both sides of a legal-size sheet of paper, then trimmed and folded to credit card size and stored in a Tyvek™ envelope that fits easily into a wallet.
On one side is an Emergency Communication Directory, with contact information for staff, first responders, emergency services, utilities, vendors and suppliers, disaster teams, and other essential individuals and agencies.
The other side contains an Emergency Response Checklist: an organized list of those actions that each individual should take in the first 24 to 72 hours following a disaster.
Bob adapted the back page to include a small incident report, where staff can jot things down during an emergency. He uploaded the Athenaeum plan to Google docs, so all staff have access and the entire plan is online. Bob notes that the plan is meant to be printed on legal size paper and then trimmed and folded to fit into the tyvek pocket.
