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---------- Forwarded message ----------From: Teresa Brinati <[log in to unmask]>Date: Sep 21, 2005 3:34 PMSubject: [ARCHIVES] Pearce-Moses Report from MississippiTo: [log in to unmask]



Report from Mississippi
Prepared by SAA President Richard Pearce-Moses
September 21, 2005—Three weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit the GulfCoast, a small team was able to visit some of the archivalrepositories in the areas of Mississippi hit hardest by the storm. The team sought to show the profession's support for archivists and toask the people on the front lines how the profession can respond inways that will truly help given the current situation.
The team included David Carmicheal, President of the Council of StateArchivists and State Archivist for Georgia; Richard Pearce-Moses,President of the Society of American Archivists and Director ofDigital Government Information for the Arizona State Library andArchives; and Debra Hess Norris, Chair of Heritage Preservation andChair of the Art Conservation Department at the University ofDelaware.  Other partners who helped organize the trip included theNational Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators(NAGARA), the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), theCouncil of State Library Administrators (COSLA), and the Society ofSouthwest Archivists (SSA).
On Sunday, September 18, Norris led an informal workshop on recoveryof wet photographic materials.  That evening, the staff of theMississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH), includingDepartment Director Hank Holmes and State Archivist Julia Young,briefed the team on what they had seen on visits to hurricane-ravagedareas during the previous two weeks.
On Monday, September 19, MDAH staff members Grady Howell and JeffRogers led the team on site visits to several repositories inWaveland, Gulfport, and Biloxi.
The team observed that collections typically were either lost entirelyor survived the storm but were damaged subsequently by high humidityand mold, with few collections in between.  The Waveland City Hall andtwo buildings at Beauvoir (the Jefferson Davis home) were demolished,leaving only a slab or a pile of rubble; records left in the buildingswere destroyed.  At other sites, records in buildings without powerwere damp from the high humidity, often exacerbated by water damage tothe building.  Many records at the Biloxi Public Library weresubmerged and will need to be salvaged. Much of the damage to recordscame from a storm surge that swept through buildings, destroyed theircontents, and then retreated. This suggests that conditions may bedifferent in New Orleans, where the water resulted from a broken levyrather than a storm surge and where damage has probably resulted fromstanding water rather than surging water.
There was little evidence of paper in the debris surrounding homes andbusinesses.  Shreds of fabric and plastic were caught in trees, but itappears that the power of the storm surge completely destroyed paper. A few plastic data disks and videotapes were scattered around,although caked in grime, and an occasional photograph was seen amongthe debris.  In a few instances, a file cabinet could be seen standing(although often missing drawers), and in every case observed, therecords were already heavy with mold.
Nothing can be done for the collections that were destroyed. The toppriority in protecting surviving records is to arrest the growth ofmold.  For those records that are merely damp, getting them into anair-conditioned environment is a high priority.  Power is still off inmany areas, however, and even where it is available there is theconcern that it is not always safe to restore power to damagedbuildings.  It is critical that these records be removed from damagedbuildings to ensure that they are not destroyed during efforts toclean up the buildings.  The (smaller number of) records that weresoaked must be (and are being) transferred to freezer trucks whenpossible, but often access to those collections is complicated byhazardous conditions in the building.
At the same time that individuals are working to care for theircollections, they are also struggling to recover their own lives.  Oneindividual with whom we spoke has lost his home, and another had sixfeet of water on the first floor.  Both, though, were hard at worksorting through damaged records. Their commitment to their work isadmirable.
Although a few repositories could potentially use volunteers to helpwith recovery, the reality is that currently there is no way toaccommodate volunteers.  In the affected areas, there is no lodging,no potable water, no food.  Lodging in Jackson, about 150 miles fromthe coast, is scarce; MDAH staff members have been commuting threehours each way on a nearly daily basis.
Stabilizing the records can buy time.  If damp records can bedehumidified to halt mold growth and if wet records can be frozen,people can then take some time to do more careful planning, to findout what FEMA will pay for, and to identify other funding sources. Atsome time in the future, it will be possible for volunteers to beaccommodated.
The team repeatedly asked, "What do you need?"   Here's what we heard:
1. An air-conditioned space to which damp and wet records can be moved.
2. Someone to help manage logistics for the transfer and control ofrecords stored in this facility and, in the future, to coordinatevolunteers.
3. Space for accommodating volunteers.
4. A telephone hotline, staffed by experts, that members of the publicmight call for advice on recovering their personal papers,photographs, and other records.
MDAH staff members currently are spearheading recovery work, but it isplacing enormous demands on their staff and budget.  Staff members ofthe National Archives and Records Administration—and Allen Weinsteinpersonally—are helping to remove bureaucratic barriers.  NARA alreadyhas released some funds to Mississippi and Louisiana to help withimmediate expenses, and it is looking for additional funds to supportthese efforts.
It may be a month before repositories will be ready for volunteer helpin salvaging documents.  In the interim, the professionalorganizations must work together to help find solutions to theimmediate problems described above.
The team is putting together a document of "lessons learned."  But onelesson stands out among all others:  Even modest efforts at disasterpreparedness and prevention often made the difference betweendestruction and survival of essential records.  That's a lessoneveryone can and should take to heart.
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