 Hi everybody. Thank you so much for joining today. We're going to go ahead and get started. Today is the first webinar of a three-part webinar series focused on salvaging fire damaged items. Today we will focus on health and safety considerations. The next webinar on object salvage will take place on Tuesday, October 3rd at 9 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time and the final webinar will take place Wednesday, October 4th at 9 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time. Each webinar will be recorded and accessible through YouTube and I will share that link later on. Our presenter today is Tara Kennedy, who is the Co-Chair of the National Heritage Responders Volunteer Corps and Head of Preventive Conservation at the Yale Library Center for Preservation and Conservation. Tara holds an MLIS and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Library and Archives Conservation from the University of Texas at Boston and MS in Forensic Science from the University of New Haven and a Bachelor's Degree in Art History from Northwestern University. She's a professional associate with the American Institute for Conservation or AIC and an active member of the National Heritage Responders, which is a group of conservators and allied professionals who specialize in emergency preparedness and response. I'd also like to thank Brittany Centeno and Laurie Foley for their support of this webinar and for helping with content creation. They're also both National Heritage Responders volunteers. Without further ado, I'm going to hand it over to Tara. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. So, as Elena said, I'm Tara Kennedy. I will be your presenter today. And as Elena said, I'm a National Heritage Responder and so I have a background in emergency response and health and safety. So I'll be talking to you today about how to protect yourself and those around you when working to recover items from the wildfires that occurred in Hawaii. We did our best to put together relevant information for you and resources to assist you with your recovery process. So we hope we have done this justice for you. First, I just want to add this disclaimer. The webinar is not meant to substitute for medical advice from a professional. The information you're going to hear is more general in nature. So if you have very specific medical conditions or situations that apply to you, I highly recommend consulting a licensed medical professional before proceeding into working with collections that have been exposed to these fires. So just to go over the things that you will learn today. So why are health and safety important? What are the hazards that you need to be aware of? How can you protect yourself and others? And what resources will be available to help you with the work that you'll be doing? So first of all, why are health and safety important? In all emergency situations, human life takes precedence over collections recovery. You can't save your collections if you are unwell. So if you consider this, the five minutes that it takes for you to put on proper personal protective equipment or PPE is an acronym you probably heard, it could save you a lifetime of potential chronic illness. So why else is health and safety important? In some cases, it's required. Occupational self-safety and health administration in OSHA has requirements for workers to wear PPE, especially when working in an emergency response situation, especially when the emergency response site is a federal, state or local government entity. And lastly, health and safety are often the last thing people are thinking about when responding to an emergency. People are concerned about recovering collections, helping others, and they often forget about protecting themselves. So just like when the flight attendants always say, but they always say, remember to put your mask on first before assisting others. So what hazards do you need to be aware of? It's important to understand the risk to your safety and health even after the fire is out. The soot, the dirty water, other things left behind may contain contaminants that are harmful to you. So this is going to be the part that we'll talk about what some of those hazards are and why they are a problem. So what are fire, smoke, soot, and ash? Fire smoke is composed of gases and particles resulting from the burning of materials present during the fire. And that can include food, plastics, fabric, wood, and metals. Soot are the carbon-based deposits that did not complete combustion during a fire, during the fire, and there's no heat component like there is with fire smoke. And then ash is a byproduct from the fire of materials that are combustible, that were not able to be combusted. So fire smoke can contain soot and ash particles that are incredibly small, which in turn can cause serious respiratory problems. So to give one a perspective of how small we're talking about here, this visualization that was from the Visual Capitalist website is a great visualization of how part of the particle size compared to other seemingly very tiny things. The particle circled in red is a particulate found in wildfire smoke, and these particles can be inhaled very easily without proper respiratory protection. And to scale, the human hair, which is the piece at the top, is 50 to 180 micrometers and micrometers, and wildfire smoke can be as small as 0.4 to 0.7 micrometers. So incredibly, incredibly tiny. But we will go over the type of respiratory protection needed to protect you from these tiny, tiny particles. So what other hazards might there be? In the soot and ashes, there could be any of the following listed in the slide. Heavy metals, asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, and benzene and other volatile organic compounds. So why would these things be found in the fire remnants? So historic wooden buildings on the island, especially in Lahaina, are older and may have been built before certain hazardous building materials were outlawed or no longer used. So some examples of that would be lead-based paint, would have been used in the buildings built before the late 1970s. Some buildings that were treated with arsenic to control termites, that was something that was done. It's much like the Ayolani Palace in Honolulu, that was treated with arsenic to control termites. And even beyond the buildings, arsenic was also used as an herbicide on the island, so that also could have been stirred up as a result of the fires. Historic structures could also contain asbestos, which can be found in the fire ash, which can cause cancer if inhaled. It's found normally in insulation, that's probably the most common place you'll find it, for pipes and for furnaces and those sorts of things. Also could be found in floor and ceiling tile and other building components. And it was used between the early 1940s and through the 1970s. And the other problematic elements are contemporary materials that would have been in people's homes and places of business, such as plastics and carpeting. Plastics and other manufacturing materials could contain PCBs. And what PCBs are, it's a substance that was used in many different industrial and commercial applications, like in pigments, dyes, and carbonless coffee paper, for example. It could be in plasticizers, in paints, plastics, and rubber products. And it's also is used in fluorescent light ballast. So these were banned in 1979 due to there being a carcinogen. They also can have immune reproductive and neurological effects on the human body. So another dangerous thing. And benzene has already been identified in Maui's water system as a result of the fires. Benzene is also a known cancer causing agent. So any water used for any purpose should be from a bottle and not from the tap. So if I mentioned the hazards associated with waters, fires can contaminate water systems with chemicals or bacteria, especially if a fire causes water lines to lose pressure. Things like smoke, hot gases, and chemicals can inadvertently be sucked into broken water lines. And as I mentioned, benzene has already been detected in the Maui water supply. According to Scientific American, the University of Hawaii is testing for benzene for maldehyde and 86 other chemicals that are classified as VOCs or volatile organic compounds. And it's also checking for dozens of other contaminants. And that will take time. So they want to be certain that people are not using water from the tap in the meantime. The other issue concerning water is water soaked ash can also cause chemical burns if it comes into contact with skin or mucus membranes. Water soaked ash is almost considered, or it actually is considered lye. So it's very alkaline and that can burn your skin and mucus membranes when wet. Another hazard in wet environments that you may come across is mold. Mold risk is high in these kinds of damp environments. High humidity, plenty of moisture from putting out the fires. And many sources of organic material make it prime conditions for mold to thrive and propagate. So mold grows well on paper, drywall, and carpets. And it's important to recognize that all molds pose a health risk and that some people are more at risk than others. It is really truly dependent on the person rather than the type of mold. Those most at risk are those with compromised immune systems, respiratory illnesses or asthma or allergies to molds, mushrooms, or penicillin. In truth, there are molds that are inherently toxic such as stachybotrous charter room. And that's what you see in this picture here that's growing on water damaged gypsum wallboard. But it's best to assume that all mold is a health risk. That way you will always protect yourself and others if you encounter mold when you're on site. So how can you protect yourself and others while you're doing this very important work? So when you're working with materials exposed to the fire, be sure you're protected. Use the acronym SHELL as your checklist. You should have protect your skin, protect your hands, protect your eyes, and protect your lungs with a respirator. So residents when they have been given permission to go back into their locations, they should be receiving a reentry kit of personal protective equipment that will contain items to protect these areas. We're going to go over them just so you're familiar with what comes in the kit. And these will come as part of, like I said, this will come as part of the announcement as to when your area is safe to reenter. So this is the type of personal protective equipment that we would recommend when going into working with any collections that were exposed to the fire and also when you go into back to the sites during reentry. So for protecting your skin because of the potential chemical hazards associated with the wet ash and soot, you want to make sure you cover as much exposed skin as you can to prevent skin from coming into contact with any of the fire remnants. This tie-back suit, as you see in the image here, or washable long pants and a shirt, long sleeve shirt are recommended. The tie-back suit is probably the best barrier you can wear, especially since there's also a hood. So it also prevents the back of your neck and your hair getting contaminated with any of the fire remnants. So your kit will come with standard nitrile gloves, but if you choose to purchase them yourself, you want to get unpowdered versions of nitrile gloves. And if you can find ones with extra long cuffs, like you see in the picture here, that's even better protection in case your sleeves start to ride or roll up. It often happens while you're working and you don't necessarily notice that it's occurring. And it's often difficult to notice those things while you're in the middle of recovery or in the middle of work. So it's good to cover your bases early before venturing into the work and being prepared. Goggles are especially useful to protect your eyes from any particles or irritants that may get into your eyes. These are especially important if you're on-site recovering materials. If you recall how small those particle are from the fire that I showed you in previous slides, that means that they can easily be stirred up in the air and flown around. Even while working and cleaning in an enclosed space, you are still at risk at getting small particles in your eyes. So wearing eye protection and avoid touching your eyes while working is extremely important. And finally, a respirator. At a minimum, you should wear a NIOSH-approved, well-fitting N95 half face mask. Ideally, a half mask respirator with P100 cartridges would be ideal. That would give you the ultimate protection from the tiny particles of soot and ash and hazardous materials that you might breathe in. And that's what the firefighter is wearing in the picture there. Just as a reminder, cloth masks, medical masks, they will not protect you. You need to have an N95 respirator half mask at a minimum. Fire ash may be irritating to the nose and throat and may cause coughing and nose bleeds. Fine particles can then be inhaled deeply into the lungs and may aggravate asthma and may make it difficult to breathe. This is why wearing respiratory protection is so critical. Before you go into the recovery area or before you start work on cleaning your collections, you want to do a seal check test to make sure that the respirator forms a good seal around your nose and mouth before beginning work. We've included instructions on how to remove and put on your N95 and half mask respirators in the resource packet at the end of the presentation. There's also websites or documents that show you how to do a seal check to make sure that you have a good seal around your nose and mouth that's being with that mask. So some other additional precautions when working or recovering actually on the site rather than in another area where you're cleaning the collections that you've recovered. You want to make sure you have permission and have received your re-entry kit from the Hawaii Department of Health before going to the impacted site. It's important to make sure that you have permission to go. You don't want to enter this site until you're permitted to do so. One of the reasons you want to wait is you want to give the hazardous materials cleanup professionals time to clean up the ash and fire debris to reduce risk of exposure. While they won't necessarily be able to clean up all of it, they will clean up the major majority of it and that is helpful in reducing your risk to exposure. Because limiting the amount is one way you reduce risk of exposure, but that doesn't mean you should not wear the PPE you absolutely should. So children and pregnant people should not enter or help with recovery and you want to avoid bringing pets into the impacted area. Children tend to be very exploratory and that may result in direct contact with contaminated materials. Pets in these areas also due to the pets could be at risk for their health to be there and they also would spread could spread the materials from the contaminated areas into other areas. So you do not want to eat in the impacted area while you're working and you do not want to eat or drink anything that has been exposed to the flames, smoke, sweat or water used to extinguish the fire. You want to bring an extra change of clothes and shoes that way you can change into those clothes immediately after your visit and then all the used PPE and clothing that you did have on can go into one of the trash bags. Your clothing should be washed and you want to use cold water and you want to wash it separately from other laundry and all the PPE that you used should be placed in a separate trash bag and thrown away with the regular trash. You definitely want to bring water to drink because it's going to probably be hard work and you want to bring tissues or a small towel to help wipe away tears and sweat. And while you're there, you want to watch for physical hazards such as downed trees, power lines and other sorts of physical hazards. If you have steel toad or steel shanked shoes, wear them. There's likely to be many nails or there's sharp objects present. The steel toes and steel shanks in shoes will protect your feet from sharp or penetrating objects in the area. So beyond physical protection, what should you do to take care of your mental state while you're doing this difficult work? Remember helping yourself is helping others, you can't pour from an empty cup. Make sure you limit your working hours to no longer than 12 hour shifts. Work in teams, employ the buddy system. You have two responders can partner together to support each other and monitor each other's stress workload and safety. Write in a journal, talk to others about what your feelings and experiences, practicing breathing and relaxation techniques can be helpful, making sure you're eating well and getting adequate sleep and knowing that it's okay to say no. You don't have to and you shouldn't have to do everything and one person can't do it all. You want to avoid or limit caffeine and alcohol because they do tend to dehydrate, especially alcohol and taking breaks is not selfish. It's necessary. You should take 15 minutes for every hour of work that you're doing, even more if it's really heavy physical labor that you're doing. And you have to remember that the needs of survivors are not more important than your own needs and well-being. You have to think, make sure that you are taking care of yourself as well as others and working all the time does not mean you will make your best contribution. You can make your best contributions by taking care of yourself and taking breaks and resting and know that there are other people who can help with their response and definitely stay hydrated. Responding to disasters can be both rewarding and stressful. Knowing that you have stress and coping with it as you respond will help you stay well and this will allow you to keep helping those who are affected. So in helping others, there's a relatively new term called psychological first aid. It's a way to help those around you that are into stress and need help. It's essentially the emotional equivalent of applying physical first aid to someone who has cut themselves or sprained an ankle. It's designed to reduce initial distress caused by a traumatic event and to foster short and long-term adaptive functioning. You help the person to center themselves so that they can tap into the ways that they have been successful in the past with managing stressful situations. And the great thing about this, this isn't therapy. This is something that laypersons can do. Mostly it's a matter of connecting with the distressed person, help to provide safety and comfort and a system with making connections with others to help them with their current needs and concerns. We've included a YouTube video link in our resource document that goes to what physical psychological first aid is and how to conduct it. And there are many mental health and health services available on the website MauiRecovers.org. The website will be spelled out on the next slide and it's also going to be on our resource document. But there are two that are specifically geared toward responders who are working in the recovery efforts. Mindful living group is extending their services and hours to provide vital support to the first responders, leaders, healthcare workers and clinicians who have been tirelessly dedicating themselves to the recovery efforts. And they have a variety of different services ranging from mental and spiritual health to dealing with compassion, fatigue and anxiety, stress and being and just being tired. They have two offices on Maui and one on Oahu. And those who are for those who are looking for a space for connecting and sharing your stories with others. Maui Strong has a 24-7 Zoom space available. And this space invites first responders, frontline staff, volunteers and all helpers who have been involved in caring for those affected by the Maui wildfires. It's available at no cost from volunteers with experience in supporting mental health needs. And we've included the link to the Zoom chat room in our resources document. So what are the resources? Maui recovers that website I have found to have the most up-to-date information about what's going on, about the entry plan and the work that's been going on and resources you might need. So I would definitely start with that website. And then we've created a second website or a second document that has additional resources, some of the resources I've mentioned in this presentation. I've created a tiny URL for that. So you would just put tinyurl.com backslash capital N, capital H, capital R, capital H, capital S. And that will bring you to the Google document that has all this information. And if you need advice during collections recovery, you could always call the National Heritage Responders Hotline at 202-661-8068. And we also have a web, pardon me, an email that's emergencies at culturalheritage.org. That's for less urgent questions you might have. And we would like to put in a plug for a FEMA disaster assistance for private nonprofit government organizations. There's a virtual meetup that's happening tomorrow morning, September 26th from 9 to 11 a.m. Hawaiian time. And it will be on Microsoft Teams. I've provided a link to the meeting here. It's another tiny URL. And it's also in the resources document that you'll find from the other tiny URL link. So the topics of the briefing that we'll go on are who is eligible for disaster assistance, what types of expenditures, services, and projects might qualify, and how to apply. It's going to be especially helpful for private nonprofit organizations that have limited experiences with FEMA public assistance. So the FEMA public assistance program, it provides funding to help cultural institutions and arts organizations recover. Private nonprofits, including houses of worship, and community groups may be eligible for financial reimbursement for emergency protective measures, debris removal, or restoration of certain facilities. And there are other types of work that might be eligible, such as repair or replacement of materials, equipment and furnishings, treatment of special library collections, but not replacement necessarily, stabilization, work necessary to return items to a condition in which they can function in the same capacity as they did before the disaster, reasonable costs associated with the development of the treatment plan for collections or individual objects, and costs associated with restoring an item to pre-disaster condition. And the link, as I mentioned, for this briefing, that's virtual, was also in our resources document. I'd like to thank Brittany Santeno and for her assistance with putting this presentation together. And Laurie Foley, who's the coordinator for the Heritage Emergency National Task Force, FEMA Office of Environmental Planning and Historic Preservation for her feedback and guidance on putting this presentation together. I thank you for your attention and I will be happy to take any questions you might have. Thank you. Sarah, we have a question, what kind of footwear should be worn when re-entering? So in the re-entry kits, they give you shoe covers, which I don't think is so great because of some of the things that you're going to find that are sharp or could penetrate. Ideally, you should have boots with, like work boots with steel toes and steel shanks in them. That would offer the ultimate protection. Then a follow-up question to that. Shoes should be enclosed and tie on? Yes. Thank you. If anybody else has questions, please enter them in the question answer box. I see that someone in the chat said the state blocks tiny URLs. Okay. If that's the case, I will add the links to the document, to the resource document in its full form in the chat for those of you who can't use tiny URLs. Thank you for letting me know about that. I always forget about those sorts of things. We have another question that just came through. Do you have a recommendation for a good source for respirators? So in the document, the resource document, we have a couple of resources available, including the Maui Home Depot. Brittany was kind enough to check in with them to see if they had those things in supply and they actually do. I'm going to grab this document here. I'm just going to grab the link here. Another question whenever you're ready. Okay, we have, so here is the resource document and this is the Google Doc link. That should work. Thank you. In a pinch, could someone use latex dishwashing gloves knowing that one is not allergic to latex? You could. There's a lot of different types of gloves you can use and if you have a way to actually even layer multiple gloves, that's even better. Usually, we just recommend nitrile gloves because they don't react with a lot of different things and it's also something that's readily available because of the pandemic but latex gloves, whatever you can find, is fine. Thank you. We'll give it a couple more minutes to see if any more questions come in. In the meantime, for those of you that joined after our initial announcements, our next webinar is going to focus on salvaging objects and it will be on Wednesday, October 3rd at 9am Hawaii Standard Time and the final of our three-part webinar series will take place on Wednesday, October 4th at the same time at 9am Hawaii Standard Time. That webinar will focus on salvaging book and paper materials. It looks like there was a question in the chat. At what point do you take off the gear, like before getting in the car or at home? I probably would do it before getting in your car so you would, if you can change your clothes before you get into the car that would be ideal, definitely before you get back into your home because you don't want to bring the contaminated stuff into your house. You can keep your clothes and your PPE in separate trash bags since the PPE you can just throw into the trash. Your clothes, you can wash them separately when you get home in cold water and detergent. Does that help? Cool. Yes. Awesome. And as a follow-up to the question about the respirators, Malia mentioned that a nonprofit organization ordered hundreds of half-faced respirators for cultural heritage responders, so check with Lahaina Restoration Foundation, the Maui State Historic Preservation Division, or Maui Historical Society. Thank you, Malia, for providing all the information in the chat. This has been very helpful. All right, it looks like we might be able to wrap up early. For those of you that have additional questions, as Tara mentioned, feel free to reach out to the National Heritage Responders Hotline, which is 202-661-8068, or email emergencies at culturalheritage.org. Anybody from the public that would like to get access to NHR volunteers can email NHR Public Helpline at culturalheritage.org, and happy to continue assisting however we can. I will stop the recording shortly, and then we will post the recording to YouTube, and that will be accessible for those who are not able to join us today. Oh, it looks like somebody just asked a question. Oh, perfect. Yes, so, oh, please hold. I will go get some gloves. Fashion blue-green. So, you can do this a couple of ways. Often people use their pinky and grab the cuff, like just underneath there, and pull it inside out and dispose, should have brought more gloves in. There's other, and there's another way you can do it, that I'm going to redo this. I'm so glad that we're recording this. Okay, and now, that's the only way you can do it. And the other way, I've kind of grabbed in here, and I usually, I still grab, but I kind of fold them in on each other. So, basically, you have the inside-out packet, and you just, yeah. So, magic trick. Thank you for demonstrating, and thank you for the question. Yes, that was a good question. Okay. I got an applause. Well, thank you so much, Tara and Brittany and Laurie Foley, who's not here, but I'm sure we'll watch the recording later. Thank you all so much for preparing this content, and thank you for our attendees, and for anybody else watching this after the fact. Have a great rest of your day.