Disaster Archive
Hurricanes 2005

Damage and Response Reports

April 13 Houston Chronicle article: Smithsonian hopes new collection can 'make sense of a mess' called Katrina. Museum seeking artifacts that tell of human tragedy along with political and social fallout.
WASHINGTON - Trudging through the hurricane-devastated Gulf Coast last fall, David Shayt, a curator with the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, searched for artifacts that would preserve the story of Hurricane Katrina.

It was the museum's first concerted effort to document a natural disaster using physical objects that evoke not only the storm's human toll but also its political and social fallout.

"What we're trying to do is make sense of a mess," said Shayt, who along with Smithsonian photographer Hugh Talman made two collection trips through Louisiana and Mississippi last September and December.

The Smithsonian has no immediate plans to formally exhibit what they pulled from the mud and muck. But on Wednesday, Shayt provided the first glimpse of a small category of the debris: clothing and textiles that help show what happened after Katrina hit. To read more, click here.

 

April 11 The Advocate article: More money urged for libraries. Panel asked to restore $1 million cut. Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu asked a House panel on Monday to restore nearly $1 million that Gov. Kathleen Blanco proposed cutting from the State Library.
Landrieu and others said public libraries have played an especially vital role to Louisiana residents since hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

"The last thing you want to cut is libraries,” Landrieu told the House Appropriations Committee. “I would ask you to restore that funding."

The panel did not vote on the issue Monday.

The State Library of Louisiana, which is in Baton Rouge, offers government documents, genealogical data, audio books and other information. It is designed to improve the state’s literacy through cultural and other resources, especially those unique to the state. To read more, click here.

 

April 10 National Trust Magazine article: Congress Considers $80 Million for Katrina-Damaged Historic Properties.
Last week, the Senate appropriations committee approved a $106 million hurricane relief bill that includes $80 million for historic homeowners in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana—a "major victory for historic preservation," according to Richard Moe, president of the National Trust, which advocated for the funding.

"These funds represent the targeted relief that is desperately needed to save the region's unique heritage," Moe says. The federal grants "will go a long way toward assisting property owners, particularly low- and moderate-income owners of historic homes who didn't have flood insurance, to rebuild and reoccupy their homes in the Gulf Coast, and thus help bring their communities back to life."

According to the bill, the state historic preservation offices, who have received $3 million in federal aid to oversee Section 106 reviews of Katrina-damaged historic properties, will administer the grants. To read more, click here.

 

April 4 US Newswire release: Historic Preservation Wins Major Victory in Senate Today for Katrina Grants; Statement From Richard Moe.
WASHINGTON, April 4 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Historic preservation won a major vistory in the Senate today when the appropriations committee approved a $80 million measure for grants to stabilize and repair historic properties damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The grants, if agreed to by the House of Representatives, will be administered by the state historic preservation officers.

Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation which led the camapaign for the special funds, said the action "will go a long way towards assisting property owners, particularly low- and moderate-income owners of historic homes who didn't have flood insurance, to rebuild and reoccupy their homes in the Gulf Coast, and thus help bring their communities back to life." To read more, click here.

 

April 1 Sun Herald article: Sun Herald to donate $100K. Money will help restore historic buildings.
BILOXI - The publisher of the Sun Herald pledged the paper will give $100,000 to start the process of repairing and preserving historic Coast buildings damaged by Katrina.

Ricky Mathews made the announcement Friday during the annual awards ceremony honoring South Mississippi's outstanding business and community leaders.

"We run the risk of losing much of our history. There's a really big hole to fill," Mathews said. "I think this will be a good start to the process and it will help this problem get some recognition."

Mathews said the South Mississippi Historical Preservation Task Force will use the money to help private owners of state and federally designated historical buildings.

Richard Moe, president of The National Trust for Historic Preservation, testified to a House of Representatives subcommittee that 300 historic Mississippi properties were destroyed and 1,200 more suffered considerable damage. He estimated 15 National Register historic districts along the Coast lost at least two-thirds of their buildings. To read more, click here.

 

March 30 Sun Herald article: 85,000 books are donated. Archdiocese of Washington helps out.
Each year, the staff of the Catholic Standard newspaper holds a book drive among the schools and parishes of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. Moved by the images of devastation along the Mississippi Gulf Coast from Hurricane Katrina, the group decided that this year, the drive's yield would best benefit schoolchildren in the Diocese of Biloxi.

Announcements went out to all the parishes in the Archdiocese, and the donations poured in.

"We received three times as many books as we ever have before," said Laurie Enceneat, director of parish relations for the Catholic Standard. By the end of the drive, more than 85,000 books had been collected.

Staffers spent a full month sorting and packing the books, and then a team of four drove two full truckloads down from Washington, arriving Tuesday.

"We expected to see roof damage and that sort of thing," Enceneat said. "I was not prepared to see complete areas with nothing left. The first school neighborhood that we went to, (Waveland's) St. Clare, to see homes totally gone, businesses gone, it was really overwhelming." To read more, click here.

 

March 27 Clarion Ledger article: Iowa librarian preserves documents.
BILOXI — To Gary Frost, the stains and smudges left by Hurricane Katrina on the pages of a Civil War letter have done what historians can only dream of: Given an old relic a new story to tell.

The four-page letter, written on blue hotel stationery by Jefferson Davis to then-U.S. President James K. Polk, had been among the rare manuscripts on display at Beauvoir, Davis' home, now a museum and library, in Biloxi.

Like so much of the Gulf Coast, the 52-acre estate was no match for Katrina's fierce winds and tidal surge. The storm tore part of the mansion's roof, leveled buildings, obliterated the library pavilion and washed the letter and a dozen other artifacts on display in the library's first floor more than 700 feet away.

Frost, a preservationist with the University of Iowa Library, volunteered his energy and expertise in the cleanup, and in doing so earned first crack at reclaiming Davis' damaged letter. To read more, click here.

 

March 20 Des Moines Register article: U of I document repairers tackle toll of Katrina
One preservation expert from the U of I library has repaired letters from Jefferson Davis' family. The University of Iowa's library preservation department is helping put back what 12 feet of hurricane-fed water stole from a presidential library in Mississippi last fall.

Gary Frost, a conservator of the U of I preservation department, visited the Gulf Coast region last fall to assess the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. While there, Frost met with officials at the Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library in Biloxi, who were scrambling to locate and repair irreplaceable paintings, manuscripts and other historical items washed away by the storm. To read more, click here.

 

March 11 News Flash article: Library Journal, American Library Assn fixing two N.O. libraries
The American Library Association and two library service companies will renovate a historic branch of the New Orleans Public Library during the ALA meeting in June, when another branch — restored by Library Journal — is scheduled to reopen.

Hurricane Katrina damaged the main library and all 12 branches in the perennially underfunded system. Only the main library and four branches, including one to be renovated by the ALA, are open.

They are open for only five hours a day, partly because city budget cuts forced it to lay off all but 19 of its 216 employees. Recently, 21 have been rehired. To read more, click here.

 

March 10 American Libraries OnLine article: First Lady Announces Grants to Build Gulf Coast School Libraries
Accompanying her husband on a visit to inspect areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina last year, First Lady Laura Bush announced March 8 that the Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries had set up a special fund to award grants to restock school libraries that lost their collections in the disaster.

“According to the U.S. Department of Education, 1,212 public and private schools in the Gulf Coast region were damaged or destroyed,” Mrs. Bush said. “The basic initial cost of building a book collection for an elementary school library is about $50,000. And the cost for a secondary school library is at least $100,000.”

Schools should begin receiving the awards by late April or early May, said Mrs. Bush. “Additional grants will be distributed throughout the year as more schools are rebuilt and ready to stock their libraries,” she added. To read more, click here.

 

March 4 Indianapolis Star article: Owners revive their old homes by the book.
Many people are using an old kind of road map to find their way back to the past: They are turning to historically inspired pattern books that help people build homes in classical ways, with old-fashioned detailing.

In pattern books, colorful pictures and artful renderings take the reader on an evocative walk down a fantasy Main Street, past a charming row of stately Colonials, along a string of cozy bungalows with rattan chairs all primed for neighborly chats, or through a boulevard of painted-lady Victorians, with chintz curtains waving gently in the windows.

These design-and-picture books, which feature photos and drawings of model homes, floor plans and close-up sketches of architectural details, show planners, contractors and homeowners how to build by using local examples of well-loved buildings. These books don't offer full house plans or architectural drawings; rather, they are meant to be a source of information and inspiration.

It is a movement that is growing in reaction to home designs that are mass-marketed nationally but that have little regional consciousness and that local residents think are ugly and out of character with the community.

Aiding hurricane victims

Officials in Gulf Coast states are turning to the pattern-book concept to rebuild thousands of homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, to help ensure that local architectural styles survive despite the disaster. In Norfolk, Va., pattern books have been used to build or rebuild more than 240 homes. In Denton, Md., homeowners will soon be offered a city-supplied pattern book when they build or redo their homes. To read more, click here.

March 3 Kansas City infozine article: Salvaging Cultural Heritage: Efforts Continue After Katrina
Two weeks after hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Lisa Alfred had heard nothing from her family. She waited here, where she works in the communications office of the Congressional Research Service, and began worrying about other things.

"I kept thinking my family's going to die anyway," Alfred said. "I was worried about the New Orleans public library."

"I was frantic," she said. "I know what's in those collections."

Her family survived, but they are "devastated," she said. "What do you say to large spots of the country who have lost everything?"

Like Alfred, the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training long has feared the damage hurricanes might inflict on museums and collecting organizations on the southern U.S. coast.

New Orleans alone is rich in cultural history and has 22 districts listed on the city's National Register Historic District, said Mary Striegel, chief of the Materials Research Program at the center in Natchitoches, La.

Striegel was detailed to Baton Rouge in November, two months after the hurricane hit on Aug. 29, by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"You cannot come in and assist on the cultural resources when the human suffering is so high," she said.

She spent four days working with no electricity or fresh water to assess damage and clean artifacts, including Civil War-era buttons. To read more, click here.

 

March 2 All Headline News article: Libraries Pitch In To Preserve Katrina-Damaged Documents
Iowa City, Iowa (AHN) - Life after Hurricane Katrina is slowly getting back to normal and the Preservation department of the University of Iowa Libraries will help in the tedious process to restore and preserve historical documents damaged in the storm.

Documents and manuscripts from the Jefferson Davis Library in Biloxi, Miss., and the Biloxi Public Library will be some of the first to be preserved.

The idea for Project CALM (Conservation Attention for Libraries of Mississippi) came from Gary Frost, a conservator in the library's Preservation department.

Frost says libraries and archives of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi were extensively damaged by the strong right side of hurricane Katrina.

He adds, "The news cycle may be over but the need is still there. The social, economic and municipal recovery will require many years of national resolve and assistance. Cultural renewal depends in part on the survival of historical records." To read more, click here.

February 20 The Louisiana Weekly article: New website helps artists affected by Katrina and Rita
Baton Rouge, LA - The Office of Cultural Development in the Louisiana Department of Culture Recreation and Tourism has created a Cultural Resource Community Website to help artists and cultural organizations recover from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The site provides a registry, bulletin board, and outlet to other online resources to help those serving the cultural resource community. It is designed for artists and organizations to publicly post their needs, find work and inform those who are willing and able to help on what goods, services, and support is most needed.

"We know that for our state to recover from the nation's worst natural disaster in history, Louisiana's cultural assets must be rebuilt and restored," said Lt. Governor Landrieu, who oversees the Office of Cultural Development in the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism.

The goal of the registry is to match needs to resources during the rebuilding process. It provides cultural practitioners with contact and background information for musicians, performers, arts administrators, preservationists, museum professionals, and craftsmen. This feature allows visitors to search for artists by name or specific fields such as dance, music and theatre among many.

The bulletin board gives visitors to the site a chance to post jobs as well as search for jobs. This message board is not limited to local artists it also gives artists around the country the opportunity to offer their services to the rebuilding efforts taking place in hurricane impacted areas.

"We are offering these resources to artists and organizations in an effort to assist them with getting assistance specific to their needs so they can recover at their own pace and even learn how to better prepare in the event another natural disaster occurs," said Assistant Secretary Pam Breaux, with the Office of Cultural Development. The site also serves as an outlet to other sites that offer information on jobs, preservation, and other recovery tips. Visitors can also share their work and experiences as an online resource.

To learn more about the Cultural Resource Community Website please visit www.crt.state.la.us/culturalassets/. To read more, click here.

 

February 12 Wichita Business Journal: Wichita firm salvaging 377,000 Hurricane Katrina-soaked files
Tammy Near and three of her co-workers start their workdays by donning gloves, masks and protective gowns.

Their job -- to painstakingly separate documents page by page in an effort to salvage files soaked by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina.

They work for Imaging Solutions Co. in Wichita's Old Town district. The company took on the assignment of salvaging 377,000 documents in student records from Grantham University and converting them to digital files.

Grantham is an online university with offices that were located on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain in the New Orleans area. Its headquarters were flooded by the hurricane, prompting the school to move to Kansas City, Mo. To read more, click here.

 

February 10 American Libraries online article: Czech Republic Gives $111,000 to Alabama Library Destroyed by Katrina
Nearly six months after the tidal surge from Hurricane Katrina destroyed it, the Mose Hudson Tapia Public Library in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, is getting a major gift from across the water. Czech Ambassador Petr Kolár will visit the small Gulf Coast town February 15 to present a check for $111,458 to library administrator Ada Williams for the purpose of purchasing books, especially children’s books.

Czech Embassy Press Secretary Daniel Novy told American Libraries that the gift was one of several that the Czech government was providing to help areas devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Financial contributions of roughly the same amount are going to an elementary school in Deweyville, Texas; a community pharmacy in Biloxi, Mississippi; and the University of New Orleans to establish a program in comparative urban planning and administration. To read more, click here.

 

February 9 The Athens News article: VisCom helps recover photographic dreams of Katrina survivors
You don't really hear about the photographs. After a hurricane, you hear about broken levees, flooded streets and pulverized homes. You hear about major losses, not minor ones.

After disasters pummeled the New Orleans and the Gulf Coast last year, many people's family pictures were demolished, and floodwaters distorted many of those that were salvaged.

OU alumna Becky Sell, who photographed Katrina's aftermath for the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star in Virginia, heard from many affected people that "the thing that broke them up the most was the photographs." She vowed to restore as many as possible, and now OU students are involved in this nationwide effort. To read more, click here.

 

February 8 Washington Post article: Getty Foundation Makes New Orleans Donation
The Getty Foundation has established a $2 million fund to aid the city's visual arts organizations in the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

"New Orleans is an extraordinary city; its arts and architecture are cherished by people all over the world," Deborah Marrow, director of the Getty Foundation, said Wednesday in a statement.

Nonprofit arts organizations will be able to apply for two types of support under the foundation's Fund for New Orleans. There will be conservation grants designed to help the city's cultural institutions care for their art collections and archives, historic buildings and landscapes. There will also be transition planning grants to help nonprofits "respond to the changed environment for the arts following the storm."

The foundation said it will consider support through its regular grant categories for other organizations in the region that were affected by Katrina. To read more, click here.

 

February 5 Delaware News Journal article: Hurricane-ravaged art finds restoration. Winterthur conservators repair portraits from Jefferson Davis estate
The painting of Jefferson Davis does not look too good. The 19th-century portrait of the president of the Confederacy was exposed to saltwater when Hurricane Katrina devastated Beauvoir, Davis' estate in Biloxi, Miss.

The painting's varnish turned milky, nearly opaque. The paint has cracked and chipped in several spots.

"He looks more horrible than he really is," says Joyce Hill Stoner. A professor of art conservation at the Winterthur-University of Delaware art conservation program, Stoner has seen paintings in bad shape before. To read more, click here.

 

February 4 Springfield Illinois State Journal-Register article: Area men to rescue history in Louisiana
People, pets and even penguins had to be rescued after Hurricane Katrina slammed the New Orleans area in late August.

Today, eight men, several of them re-enactors at the Lincoln's New Salem and Lewis and Clark state historic sites, will head south to help rescue significant pieces of Louisiana's flood-damaged history.

The group, including members of the volunteer New Salem Militia and the Camp River Dubois Detachment, was scheduled to depart early this morning from the Illinois State Military Museum at Springfield's Camp Lincoln, en route to the Jackson Barracks Military Museum in New Orleans. The team will spend a week recovering hundreds of historic weapons and flags from the "deep muck" left behind after roughly 13 feet of floodwater soaked the museum. To read more, click here.

 

January 19 Fairfax Times Community article:  GMU, Univ. of New Orleans partner preserving hurricane stories, images
The Center for History and New Media at George Mason University and the University of New Orleans have created the http://www.hurricanearchive.org digital history project in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. All experiences related to last year's storms are sought, whether one was directly affected by the storms or served as a volunteer hundreds of miles away. First-hand accounts, on-scene images, blog postings, podcasts and other audio files are some of the materials being collected. To read more, click here.

 

January 18 University of Delaware Daily article: $403,000 Mellon grant supports Gulf Coast art conservation
Art conservators and graduate students from the University of Delaware and Winterthur Museum & Country Estate will be able to continue important work on the restoration of Gulf Coast treasures damaged by Hurricane Katrina through a $403,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

"We are grateful for the support of the Mellon Foundation, which continues to demonstrate its commitment to the preservation of America’s cultural heritage and to the education and training of future conservation professionals," Debra Hess Norris, Henry Francis du Pont Chair in Fine Arts at UD, said. To read more, click here.

 

January 12 Artnet.com article: ARTS GRANTS FOR HURRICANE VICTIMS
In response to the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has approved grants totaling $750,000 for artists and visual arts organizations in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. Recipients are the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans ($100,000), the KAT fund for visual artists at the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston ($100,000), the Craft Emergency Fund ($50,000), the Louisiana Cultural Foundation ($100,000), the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council studio and stipend program for 14 artists displaced by the storms ($50,000), the Mississippi Arts Council ($50,000), the New Orleans Museum of Art ($200,000) and the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum in Biloxi (in honor of the late David Whitney) ($100,000). The funds for the New Orleans CAC and the Ohr-O'Keefe Museum are to rehire staff, and the grant to the New Orleans Museum is to rehire staff and for 2006 programming featuring New Orleans artists. To read more, click here.

 

December 8 USA Today article: Museums, artists pick up pieces of Katrina.
For Smithsonian Institution curator David Shayt, ordinary objects — a chunk of concrete from a collapsed floodwall, a piece from a broken garden gate and a vintage 1930s clarinet that a local jazz musician rescued from the mud — help chronicle the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina.

Shayt will take these and other artifacts from one of the nation's worst natural disasters to the National Mall in Washington, where someday they will go on display. To read more, click here.

 

December 7 Fort Wayne News-Sentinel article: Archivists hoping to rescue damaged documents
Archivists used to go by a rule when it came to wet and moldy documents: get them out of the water within 48 hours, or the damage is irreversible.

That was before Hurricane Katrina.

In the aftermath of the storm, it was days to weeks before local, state and federal archivists and volunteers could rescue books, newspaper archives, photographs, genealogies and local historical records from inundated libraries and historical societies in Mississippi and New Orleans. To read more, click here.

 

November 16 Press Release: NEH AWARDS $565,000 FOR HURRICANE-RELATED RELIEF. Grants help Gulf Coast area begin recovery of books, records, cultural artifacts
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded 19 emergency grants totaling $565,000 for projects to recover and preserve cultural resources in the Gulf Coast region affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, NEH Chairman Bruce Cole announced today. The grants are the first awarded in the Endowment's special program announced in early September to provide at least $1 million in hurricane relief to libraries, museums, colleges, universities, and other cultural and historical institutions.

NEH continues to accept eligible applications for the hurricane-related emergency grants. To read more, click here.

 

October 16 Lake Charles American Press article: Team to assess historical-home damage
Lake Charles' distinctive architecture of yesteryear, steeped in history but slammed by Hurricane Rita, will get personal attention this week from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

A Damage Assessment Team will be sent by the National Trust to look at the aftermath and help property owners find some help. To read more, click here.

 

September 20 Government Computer News article: NARA releases funds for Gulf Coast archivists
Aiming to avoid the identity loss of the Gulf Coast, the National Archives and Records Administration authorized the release of up to $25,000 in emergency grants to state archives in the hurricane-battered region for disaster assessment and recovery activities. Allen Weinstein, NARA archivist, also stated yesterday that the agency will designate a senior conservator to help Louisiana officials and the Orleans Parish coroner provide document recovery assistance and support. To read more, click here. To read the press release from the National Archives, click here.

 

September 16: IMLS to Expedite Grant Review Process and Release Awards Early to Museums for Projects that Meet Needs Caused by Hurricane Katrina. Agency Also Extends Grant Application Deadlines for Museums in Declared Disaster Areas
Mary Chute, Acting Director of the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) announced today that the agency would expedite the grant review process and release awards early to successful museum applicants throughout the country whose project proposals meet the needs caused by Hurricane Katrina. The two federal grant programs affected are Conservation Project Support and Museums for America. In addition, the grant deadlines for these two grant programs have been extended for museums in declared disaster areas. To read more, click here.

 

International Organizations are interested in helping in the Katrina Recovery Effort. For information on Prague's pledge to restore monuments in New Orleans, click here.

 

September 14: ICBS Statement on the Hurricane Katrina
When the tropical cyclone Hurricane Katrina struck the United States at the end of August, it left a heavy death toll and caused catastrophic flood damage to New Orleans and the coastal regions of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The International Committee of the Blue Shield (ICBS), the cultural equivalent of the Red Cross, brings together four organisations working in the field of cultural heritage (ICA, ICOM, ICOMOS and IFLA), to coordinate preparation of and responses to emergency situations. To read more, click here.

 

September 8, via e-mail from the Library of Congress:
Just wanted to pass on some information on the Library of Congress and its efforts to help libraries and individuals affected by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Our preservation staff have a number of activities underway. One of the first things they did was update the Library's Web site to include a link to Hurricane Katrina with information for libraries, archives, museums, and the general public on the recovery of water-damaged materials. They are in the midst of checking their inventory of preservation-related supplies and working out a strategy for distributing surplus items. They have expert staff who can assist or consult with libraries on the recovery of collections and are working through the details on training in disaster recovery techniques for collections, including flash drying wet materials. Their efforts are in coordination with the IFLA Preservation and Conservation North American Network and the Heritage Preservation Foundation/FEMA Emergency Management Task Force. The National Book Festival has been working closely with First Book, a nonprofit organization teaming with the major publishers to collect books for the hurricane victims in shelters and for school systems and libraries affected by the storm. At the National Book Festival, they will be in the Pavilion of the States and located adjacent to the state tables for Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Funds will be collected to cover the shipment of the books to the locations where the need exists in those states. They have a big campaign underway with Amazon.com, which is matching $1 million raised with another million. Books for all ages are being included.

 

September 8, excerpt from a posting on Museum-L:
Michelle Baker at the SC State Museum (michelle.baker@museum.state.sc.us) is organizing the SC museum community's hurricane relief efforts. For museums outside of SC, I know that other SEMC reps are doing the same. Supplies are needed immediately. Below is a list of items needed right away by different institutions on the Gulf Coast. Who gets what will be determined by someone else. Our job is to get the items together. If you can provide any of this from your own inventory, use supply money from your budget to buy these items or send cash, it will get to the right person.

 

September 8, via email to Heritage Preservation:
Our board of trustees has offered housing for temporary relocations of museum professionals interested in various short term (6 week or longer) positions at the Park City Historical Society & Museum. If any museum professionals are interested, please contact me at smorrison@parkcityhistory.org or phone 435-649-7457.

 

September 5, excerpt from a posting on the Archives & Archivists Listserv (sponsored by the Society of American Archivists):
For those archives/special collections in need of temporary housing for their collections because of Hurricane Katrina, Texas A&M University libraries is willing to house those materials. Please feel free to contact Charles Schultz (cschultz@lib-gw.tamu.edu) or the director, Dr. Steven Smith (stevensmith@tamu.edu) for additional information.

 

September 2, postings on the Archives and Archivists Listserv (sponsored by the Society of American Archivists):
Huntington Block/AON asked that this announcement be posted in case any of their client-museums along the Gulf Coast are having trouble contacting them. In addition, if any museums represented by an insurance agency other than Block are having difficulty communicating with their broker, Laura has offered to help put them in touch with their agent. The following Huntington T. Block staff members will be available to take your call:

• Rosemary Speiser, VP, Claims Director: 202-862-5331 or (cell) 301-325-2604
• Linda Sandell, Senior VP, Underwriting Manager: 202-429-8581 or (cell) 301-385-1372
• Laura Condon, Senior VP: 202-429-8594 or (cell) 202-253-7213
• Jane Stapleton, President: 202-429-8577 or (cell) 703-402-4743

 

August 31, ICCROM eNews
In the aftermath of the devastating hurricane on 29 August 2005 which caused an appalling loss of life and destruction, the Director-General and Staff of ICCROM extend their deepest condolences to the people and government of the United States of America which have been so disastrously affected. ICCROM remains ready to provide assistance to the responsible authorities for any steps that may be taken to protect cultural heritage. To read more, click here.

 

• Task Force Home
• Sign Up For Our Mailing List
• Information on Major Disasters
• Disaster Planning and Response Resources
  • Planning and Preparedness Resources
  • Response and Recovery Resources
  • Free Downloads
  • Add to Your Bookshelf
• Task Force Initiatives
  • Alliance for Response
  • Lessons Applied: Katrina and Cultural Heritage
  • Risk Evaluation and Planning Program
  • MayDay
  • Preparing to Preserve
  • Getting Ready in Indian Country
• About the Task Force
  • History
  • Members
  • Funders
  • News releases