Hurricane Irma: Higher grounds, lots of movement at Naples arts venues as storm approaches

For continuing coverage of Hurricane Irma go to naplesnews.com/hurricane

The Baker Museum of Art had just opened a exhibition heralded by a gleaming, stainless steel sculpture outdoors in front of its building. Naples Botanical Garden was to host a wedding Saturday. 

Gulfshore Playhouse had scheduled its New Works Festival for Thursday night, That same night, the first of a free public chamber concert series by the Naples Philharmonic had been scheduled.

Hurricane Irma has blown it all away — even before the first gust of wind arrived. 

"We have closed the museum and canceled all of the chamber concerts out of an abundance of caution. We wanted to give our patrons, our musicians and our team the most time possible to make plans to keep themselves and their families safe," said Jon Foerster, communications director for Artis—Naples.

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He said the museum would be closed through Monday, Sept. 11, and would announce later whether it will reopen Tuesday, Sept. 12. In the meantime, facilities staff are strapping down outdoor art, which Foerster said may include turning some pieces on their sides for more stability.

Luckily, Arik Levy, whose "Unnatural History" exhibition opened this week at the museum, was still in Naples. He is helping to secure its outdoor works. 

"We were blessed that we have the artist here. He's knows what the structural integrity of his work is and how it can best be strapped down to protect it," Foerster said.

Gulfshore Playhouse, which annually stages a new works festival that gives playwrights a week to workshop and present readings, canceled it Tuesday.  Similarly, the 9/11 memorial tribute planned at the Marco Players theater for Monday has been postponed and may or may not be rescheduled.

Local arts and historical venues were scrambling to get valuables moved to safe places and to make contingency plans for events. 

At Palm Cottage, staff kept the atmosphere as normal as possible Tuesday because a tour was scheduled, said Elaine Reed, executive director of the Naples Historical Society, which owns the cottage. But Wednesday morning, the packing began in earnest.

The 1895-vintage structure, which serves as the city's historical museum, has been through at least 15 hurricanes that have hit or sideswiped Naples. But the storm surge possible from Hurricane Irma is projected at as high as 20 feet. That's double the impact of Hurricane Donna, currently the highest on record, in 1960.

"We've got thousands of items here," Reed said Tuesday. "We just had a staff meeting giving everyone responsibilities. We have an emergency kit to manage and wrap art objects. Some items we can move carefully." 

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But not everything is portable. Whatever can be raised will be, she said, and the staff is archiving the cottage visually as well as online: "We're taking photos of every room here and at the office at 107 Broad Street." 

At the Naples Botanical Garden, which holds one of the nation's most thorough plumeria collections, staffers were judiciously cutting off limbs from each tree and adding the ID numbers of their botanical ID summary with marking pens.

"We target our rare species and see if we can take cuttings of them and back them up," said Brian Galligan, director of horticulture. "Wednesday will be an 'all hands on deck' day.' Administrative staff — everyone — is coming in in work clothes to help.

At the botanical garden, that includes moving plants indoors or finding safe havens with some local nurseries. 

"Local nurseries know we have their backs, and they help us," he said

Staking trees isn't an option: "It can snap off at the brace point. Sometimes it's better for a tree to fall over if it's in a safe setting."

As soon as any storm has passed, the staff would have to be back, repairing the damage, he said. 

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"Our thing is visitor expectations, too. We have to get our place cleaned up and back in shape again as soon as possible," he said.

One of the casualties may precede the storm: "We do have a wedding planned for this weekend."

"At this point we're praying hard. But we're also getting all the outdoor art inside,"  said Myriam Kriel of the staff at the Marco Island Center for the Arts. The staff called on friends to move all outdoor art inside and are looking for sandbags to buttress the front door. 

"Then we've got to go home and batten down the hatches, too," she said.