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Water "incidents"
One of the things I do is give disaster prevention/response workshops and
talks. A number of years ago, I did a workshop in Yuma, way down in the
southwest corner of Arizona. We made arrangements with the Fire
Department, so we had fire, lots of water and hundreds of
"disastered" items at their training facility across the street
from the main library. About three weeks later, the city's art center, a
converted train depot, went up in flames on Saturday night, the result of
an electrical short. For the next five days, I worked with some great
volunteers, many of whom had attended the workshop, to salvage and
stabilize what had not burned.
A previous message mentioned the potential of water collecting in air
ducts. Almost twenty years ago, I was called to salvage about one
thousand books at a local university. Something had happened to the HVAC
system on top of the five-story building, and books on the third floor
were inundated. Again on a Saturday.
Several things come immediately to mind about disasters:
1. They always (almost anyway) happen on weekends.
2. They seldom happen when or how you might imagine.
3. A salvage operation, no matter how finely tuned, will not go as
expected.
4. It is always easier and cheaper to prevent a disaster than to cope
with the aftermath.
5. Even if you never use it, a written disaster plan is never a waste of
time.
For those who haven't any idea of where to start in creating a disaster
plan, you might check my website at
http://www.lib.az.us/archives/conservation.htm.
I created both generic disaster plans with smaller institutions in mind,
but they're a good starting place. I did a teleconference on disaster
planning a couple of years ago for the College of DuPage, and the video
is available from the American Library Association for $95 (ISBN
0-8389-5769-2). Nope, I receive no royalties. The tape is reviewed in
Technicalities, Volume 20 Number 6, November/December 2000.
Michael McColgin
Conservation Officer
Arizona History and Archives Division
mimccol@dlapr.lib.az.us