As storms become more intense, historic buildings must brace for impact.
But how?
That’s the question The UTSA Center for Cultural Sustainability is trying to answer.
Our work begins with Sacred Places, historic houses of worship.
As storms become more intense, Texas’ historic buildings must brace for impact.
But how?
That’s the question The UTSA Center for Cultural Sustainability is trying to answer.
Our work begins with Sacred Places—historic houses of worship.
Storms are growing stronger and happening more often.
Communities often turn to their local house of worship in the aftermath of disaster.
Faith-based groups need more support to enhance recovery efforts, also known as resilience.
The
Resilience
Roadmap
Resilience
Performance
Indicators
Summary
Vulnerability
Assessment
Resilience
Treatments
& Strategies
A Step-by-Step Guide
Rate Your Property
Evaluate Risk
Practical Steps to Improve and Prepare
Storms are growing stronger and happening more often.
Communities often turn to their local house of worship in the aftermath of disaster.
Faith-based groups need more support to enhance recovery efforts, also known as resilience.
The Resilience Roadmap
A Step-by-Step Guide
Click to Learn More
Resilience Performance Indicators
Rate Your Property
Click to Learn More
Summary Vulnerability Assessment
Evaluate Risk
Click to Learn More
Resilience Treatments & Strategies
Practical Steps to Improve and Prepare
Click to Learn More
For faith-based groups to continue helping their communities after a disaster, they must first ensure their buildings can weather the storm.
UTSA’s toolkit aims to raise the odds of quickly recovering not only from the storm that’s coming in five years, but from the storm that’s coming a century from now.
The goal is to help faith-based groups continue doing what they’ve always done—maintain their traditions on blue-sky days, and help their communities in times of trouble.
For faith-based groups to continue helping their communities after a disaster, they must first ensure their buildings can weather the storm.
UTSA’s toolkit aims to raise the odds of quickly recovering not only from the storm that’s coming in five years, but from the storm that’s coming a century from now.
The goal is to help faith-based groups continue doing what they’ve always done—maintain their traditions on blue-sky days, and help their communities in times of trouble.
The 2017 mega-storm caused $125 billion in damage. Most of it was in Greater Houston and Southeast Texas.
Part of the Harvey recovery effort included work to strengthen the state's historic houses of worship, including the nine case-study structures UTSA is evaluating.
Eaton Memorial Chapel | Reedy Chapel-AME | St. Mary’s Cathedral
Antioch Missionary Baptist | K’nesseth Israel | Trinity Episcopal
B’Nai Israel | First Church of Christ, Scientist | Trinity Lutheran
Image credits: Photos of church interiors and exteriors by UTSA-CCS personnel. Map of Texas highlighting “Most Impacted” counties by Anthony Vannette/UTSA-CCS.Map of Hurricane Harvey rainfall screen-grabbed from https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/hurricane-harvey-rain-maps-released-texas
