Bob Westby's disaster article

[Richard Boyden <richard.boyden@sanbruno.nara.gov>]

Here is the text of an article Bob just submitted to the bulletin of the
National Association of Government Archivists and Records
Administrators (NAGARA)

From: 	Robert A. Westby <102106.2724@compuserve.com>
To:	Richard Boyden <richard.boyden@sanbruno.nara.gov>
Date: 	4/3/96 2:41pm
Subject: 	Re-try of Fire Article

         Arson Attack x 4  --  It's Crazy, But It's True
                       By Robert A. Westby
     Before dawn on Monday, August 28, 1995, a Contra Costa County
municipal courthouse in Walnut Creek, California was attacked by
arsonists.  Although details on the exact nature of the ignition device(s)
and methods used have not been released by investigators, the nature
of the damage and loss became clear at daylight.
     A judge's chambers and a jury conference room on the second floor
were each set ablaze.  Fortunately the Court's data processing systems
manager was already at work in an adjacent building.  Hearing the sound
of breaking glass while near a doorway, he crossed to the Courthouse
and immediately saw flames coming from second story windows.  He
was the first to report the fire and sound the alarm.
     By about 10:30 that morning firefighters, having quickly responded
and put out the fire, permitted County administrators and
Court officials to walk through the building, view the damage, and hear
the report of investigators.  It was clearly a case of arson.  Fire damage
was limited to the second floor--primarily to the two rooms containing the
ignition points.  Other rooms and corridors on that floor suffered major
heat and smoke damage.  Water used by the
Fire Department to suppress the flames soaked the carpets and caused
a great increase in humidity level.
     The entire first floor suffered significant smoke damage, and the
records file room, located directly under the jury conference room, was
wet.  The water, having been sprayed on the fire, found its way down
through openings in the floor cut during construction for pipes, conduit,
and ventilation equipment.  The weight of its water soaked panels
brought down the ceiling onto shelving and case files below.  About 250
cubic feet of records suffered some degree of moisture damage.
     Early that morning, even before the walk-through, the County
Administrator's Office contracted with a bay area branch of a national
restoration company to manage the fire recovery.  This process included
restoration of facilities, equipment, and records.  During the
walk-through, these contractors explained the process of freeze drying,
and cleaning that needed to be started within 24 hours to preserve and
restore the records.  By mid-day a freeze drying trailer was said to be
"on its way."  A semi-trailer type freezer container was finally in place
and operating by the third day.
     County personnel and contracted staff pulled together and began to
put the pieces of court operations back together.  Temporary offices and
courtroom spaces were located.  By the second day, several divisions
of the Municipal Court were able to open for public business.  Tales of
courageous efforts and about countless hours of labor by public
employees so often told after disasters such as this, can also be told
about the Contra Costa County personnel that worked on the recovery
effort.  The rush of events, decisions, and actions was an experience
few had been through before.  It was a challenge that, for the most part,
was met courageously.  Of course, no one knew that, for a good many
of them, that week was merely to be an introductory short-course for
what was to come.
     On Thursday, September 14th, certain patterns began to be repeated.
 Patterns of crime, cowardice, and confusion.  Patterns of heat, heroism,
and help.  At about 3 a.m. in the morning, two more Contra Costa County
municipal courthouses were set alight.  This time at separate sites in the
city of Concord, California.  By
4 a.m. fire was also reported several miles away in the Superior
Courthouse in the county seat of Martinez.  Once again the fires were
quickly noticed and reported.  Firefighters again put themselves at great
risk while extinguishing the flames.
     However, on this day the damage would be more extensive.  The
cost for only the document recovery effort required by the four fires
was recently projected at four million dollars.  Within two days of the
fourth fire, two men were arrested and charged with setting the fires
and causing the damage.
     Types of records damaged in the fires included: administrative files;
civil, criminal, and juvenile appeal case files; civil case files; criminal case
files; death penalty criminal case files; domestic case files; family law
case files; juvenile case files; probate case files; register of action cards
for all types of cases.
     At the height of the first stage of recovery -- cleaning and processing
the un-charred smoke damaged records -- the contracted recovery
company (and their sub-contractors) had 27 semi-trailer container units
on three streets around the Superior Courthouse.  These were used for
housing records, clean up equipment, and document cleaning crews. 
Managers with the recovery companies commented that they believed
that this was the largest court document restoration effort that they had
ever heard of.
     Those dedicated enough to read this far must now take a time- out of
sorts.  A professional pause is necessary.  For even five and a half
months after the first spark the writer is still too burned out to continue
with more factual reporting of its result
(no pun intended).
     Apparent or not, I spent a good deal of time trying to re-cast and
re-write this piece into something that might be more meaningful to you
the readers.  As each layer of the story was considered for description,
memories of several others would be peeled back and exposed.  Each
revelation seemed to beg for inclusion.
     Although an alarm-bell for narrative continues to sound, my fingers
feel tangled in this keyboard.  I find I cannot yet adequately respond.  I am
at a loss.
     How do I tell you about this sort of a government records
management experience?  Fact by fact, or feeling by feeling?  These
were events so unpleasant that I would not wish them on anyone in our
business.  But at the same time, they were so professionally valuable
that many more of us should have to go through such things.  One would
neither want to, nor be able to buy such training.  It's crazy, but it's true.
     We archivists and records managers have often expressed our
expectations about the levels of service, the professional and technical
expertise we expect to deliver in times of crisis.  I am beginning to sense
that we must also find a way to prepare for, and to express, the awful
physical fatigue and the bitter professional anguish of the documentary
triage and recovery process.  These were the two most daunting
factors that I have had to confront.
     I took part in the first walk through on August 28th.  I learned how to
operate a fire hose on September 14th (while helping a firefighter douse
smoldering probate case files as they lay in a pile on the street).  To the
Darth Vader-like sounds of respiration caused by my respirator mask, I
spent hours recovering employee's personal mementos and public
records from charred desks, cabinets, and shelves.  Only half aware of
the day of the week, I ended up working for thirty days straight at the
Martinez fire site.  And then I got sick.  I slept for two days.
     The statistics on costs and losses have not yet all been compiled.  As
this Clearinghouse goes to press, the contracted restoration work still
has several months to go.
     Shortly after moving to Martinez and earthquake country in late-1992, I
remembered what I had learned in a professional training session.  I
packed a duffle bag with extra work clothes, protective gear, some
tools, and survival and first aid kits.  Loaded into the trunk of my car, it
would be handy--just in case.
     Knowing well the kind of luck local government records managers
have most of the time, I sometimes joked about its handiness.  My
prediction was that when the quake, the wall of the
County Recorder's Office would probably fall right onto my car.  All of my
supplies would immediately be buried.  I was unconsciously preparing
for natural, not human-caused disasters.
     As it happened, particularly on September 14th, as I reached into the
trunk to pull out that bag, the numbing ache caused by the realization of
the full impact of the fires was spread through me.  I felt as if I had been
hit by a falling brick.  I truly wished that I were somewhere else.  When
the time came to pick up the equipment, duck under the yellow crime
scene tape, and put it into practice; it was a great help, and much
comfort, to have trained with colleagues like you in NAGARA.
     As I struggled to get all of this down properly and off to the
Editor, I found that I was still too numbed by the experience to report it
with the clarity needed.  The first 90 post-fire days passed with an
intensity that melted my recollections together.  Much in the same manner
as the fire fused a length of 200 wire twisted-pair computer cable into a
single stalk of copper.  I feel
I need and want to share what I experienced and learned between
August 28, 1995 and February 2, 1996 (when I had left the County to
begin consulting work for the State of Georgia); but I am still too
overwhelmed by it all.  I cannot seem to make it come out right.  Perhaps
wanting to do so is the "crazy but true" thing about our profession.

?                              NOTES
     As a result of those fires of the Fall of 1995, and due to a wonderful
example of inter-governmental and inter-professional cooperation in the
San Francisco Bay area, a symposium on disaster planning and
recovery will be held in the Summer of 1996 in
Oakland.  Contact Richard Boyden of NARA's Federal Record Center in
San Bruno, California (at 415-876-9084) for information. 


     Contra Costa County, California is one of the nine counties
surrounding the San Francisco Bay, and is home to about one million
people.  Its original boundaries included all of the land bordering the east
side of the Bay (now Alameda County) across from San
Francisco--hence the derivation of its Spanish name , Contra Costa or
"opposite coast". ?



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