 Salvaging Water Soaked Material

Types of Flooding

Disaster Planning 1. Assessing and mitigating risks 2. Writing a plan 3. Initial Response 4. Recovery efforts

Initial Response CCollecting recovery materials SStabilizing the facility AAssessing the situation AArranging for supplies

Assessing the Situation Minor or Major Disaster?

Minor or Moderate Disaster Where is it? How many records are damaged? What materials are damaged? How long have the records been wet?

Major Disaster Where is the damage? How many records are damaged? What kind of water damage? What materials are damaged?

Stabilizing the Facility  Respond to materials soaked by pipe corrosion, mud & debris from a flood, or salt water  Do not deal with material if contaminated by sewage

Critical Time: Hours Biggest adversary is High Humidity  When the relative humidity in storage areas rises above 60% for more than several days there is a risk of mold growth Mold

Recovery Efforts  Setting Priorities  Air drying

Setting Priorities  High Value Material  Historic  Monetary  Irreplaceable Material  Manuscripts  Land Records

Other Priorities  Computer Data  Fragile Materials

Air Drying -Excellent for drying small quantities of damp and partially wet material -Excellent for drying wet materials in a major disaster when, especially if recovery services are unavailable

Air Drying  Takes lots of space and people  Air dry indoors instead of outdoors  Use fans

Washing Material

“Poor Baby Station”

Books 1. Drain book and stand upright 1. Insert interleaves about every 10 pages 1. Change interleaves 1. Flatten book

Paper Documents 1. Spread documents out over blotters 1. Change blotters when they have become too wet 1. Be careful of Soluble Media- dry these face up, and do not blot

Photographs  Avoid touching the surface of photographic prints and negatives  Most prints can be successfully air dried face up.  Change blotting material as it gets soaked

Oversize Material  May need more than one person to help move  Keep rolled or folded

Audio Visual Material  Do not freeze  If necessary, clean debris from AV material.  If possible, support vertically as they dry  May require specialized recovery service

Questions?