Tuesday, June 25, 2024
2pm - 3:30pm ET

Unexpected disasters can be overwhelming and challenging. Disaster recovery effectiveness can be improved with prepared collaboration in the chance a traumatic event occurs. This presentation will discuss ways that design professionals and stewards of historic buildings can work better together before, during, and after disasters. The speakers – an engineer and architectural historian and conservator – will share lessons learned from decades of combined experience responding to earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods, and how they work together to get the best outcomes for the sites they serve. Topics covered will include: the stages of disaster recovery, how to raise money for resilience and repair projects, working with insurance companies to get the best outcomes, and how design professionals can define scope of work and create biddable documents that help building owners write better grants and cases for support.    

Learning Objectives: 

1. Describe the three stages of disaster recovery.

2. Understand how to save money, fund projects, and work with insurance companies.

3. Articulate owner/steward’s needs for scope of work, biddable documents, grant requests.

4. Know what they should ask the owner: drawings to mark up (HSR), photographs (100s), full laser scan.

Trish Lowe Smith, MSHP
Drayton Hall Preservation Trust
[email protected]

Trish Smith, MSHP, is the Director of Preservation & Archives at Drayton Hall in Charleston, SC. Her major areas of focus are architectural research and conservation, collections care, exhibit design and fabrication, and disaster preparedness and recovery. She was an organizer and speaker for the American Institute for Conservation’s first Lowcountry Alliance for Response Forum, is a task lead for APT’s Disaster Response Initiative, and co-chairs APT’s Southeast Regional Chapter.

Craig M. Bennett, Jr. PE, SE
Bennett Preservation Engineering PC
[email protected]

Craig Bennett, Jr. PE, SE is a practicing structural engineer at Bennett Preservation Engineering in Charleston, SC. His work is exclusively in structural engineering for historic preservation and covers over 20 National Historic Landmarks, primarily in the southeast. He is a longstanding supporter and involved member of APT.