Bill's mentioning of the Grand Forks, ND flood reminded me of the flood in
Houston (2002?) when Rice University lost the great majority of their
computer center and records room, both of which were below grade.

There was also a devastating flood in Hawaii in 2004 where a library and
records facility was severely damaged and many assets lost
http://www.hawaii.edu/ala/flood.php

And there were countless incidents following Hurricane Katrina that many of
our "gene pool" were directly impacted by.

Another incident that few think of as a fire was the after effects of the
San Francisco 1906 Earthquake, where the majority of the damage and losses
tot he city were caused by the fire that happened as a result of the
earthquake. City Hall, where all the records were stored for the region at
that time was a total loss.

And a last entry for me at this time, the Martinez, CA courthouse fire in
1996.  This was an arson fire where someone had planned to burn all of the
courts records in an attempt to avoid prosecution
http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byform/mailing-lists/bap/1996/msg00065.html
I was on the scene shortly after this one occurred attempting to offer
assistance in the recovery, but instead was only allowed to stand and watch
as cabinet after cabinet of soaked, smoke damaged and charred records were
initially loaded into dumpsters by firefighters.  Eventually, that madness
was stopped and a recovery team came in and they were relocated into
dehumidification trailers.

I know thee are more incidents out there... hopefully we'll hear from others
as time goes along.

Larry

-- 
Larry Medina
Danville, CA
RIM Professional since 1972

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