By Candianne Williams
Gift Shop Attendant
I recently attended the Disaster Management for Caribbean Museums Workshop along with twenty five other participants from the region. The workshop was put on by the Commonwealth of Museums Pompey Museum of Slavery & Emancipation, National Museum of the Bahamas. We shared ideas and experiences. There were also a number of very informative and educational presentations and as a result we are now better equipped to mitigate against, prepare for and if need be recover from a disaster.
Disaster Management Workshop group photo.
In one of our sessions we dealt with risk identification and challenges associated with them. In the Caribbean our biggest risk is that of Hurricanes. That is because we are geographically located in the hurricane belt. However, there are many more disaster risks to be considered like storm surge, flooding and fire.
Here at the Turks and Caicos National Museum we have been stepping up our mitigation efforts. We have installed new hurricane doors and windows in addition to the shutters on the doors and windows that were already in place and have upgraded our alarm system. There are fire extinguishers and smoke detectors throughout the building. Our quest to protect and safeguard our 200 year old Guinep House and the wealth of history within continues.
