How To Save Your Old Shit After Floods
Hi, Tumblr. My reach is small and I am but a poor archivist who can't afford Blaze, so please boost this.
Author's note: I hate to have to add this, but cultural heritage is inherently political and this made it to TERFblr somehow so... The author is nonbinary. Go get your own archivist to teach you if you're gonna be like that.
The west coast of the US is flooding, and while it might seem unimportant in the face of people dying, getting stranded, and being without power, a lot of people are also going to lose personal history to flooding. This gets talked about a lot in the context of hurricanes, but we should all know what to do to save our pictures and documents, too.
FEMA has a good cultural heritage rescue guide here: https://www.fema.gov/disaster/recover/save-family-treasures
You can contact emergency conservators for advice here: [email protected]
The Northeast Document Conservation Center is also invaluable: https://www.nedcc.org/free-resources/preservation-leaflets/overview (check out the Emergency Management section)
Knowing what to do before it happens is crucial to actually saving things. Read this stuff now! Like to save! Bookmark it! Screen cap it! Idc but keep it handy (and remember you might not have online access when you need it)!
The FEMA guide does a really good job at explaining how to dry things, but the basics are:
Separate, separate, separate. While it's still wet if you can do so without causing further damage. Salvage color photos before black and white, paper backing before plastic film. Pre-gelatin silver (black and white on paper) photographs (collodion, ambrotype, cyanotype, etc.) get priority, but most people don't have those. Remove items from frames of they show signs of water damage. Take off dust jackets, unfolder documents, etc.
Rinse with clean, bottled water if there is mud or other debris. Use a dish pan, fill it with a little water, and slip photos in carefully for a short little bath. Dip, dip, dip if you need a little agitation to remove mud, but don't wipe or swish (unless it's REALLY stuck and you're okay with the possibility of damage). Change your water often, and try to avoid agitating things or touching the image side. It is recommended to hold books closed to protect the textblock from more water when you rinse. Obviously, don't soak things. Photos are probably your most fragile material and can be submerged for up to 48 hours before it gets really hard to save them, so you don't want to add to that time.
Spread it all out. Get creative with how you keep things apart. Hang things if they can take the strain, but remember that the corners are the weakest points of paper and photos. Books can be tented on clotheslines if the binding is still sturdy (pages aren't coming loose. If they are, see the next point)
Interleave books with paper towels every 1/4 inch of pages or so. If you can, fan them out and stand them upright. Change the paper towels as they get damp (and idk, use them for cleaning tasks. Shit's expensive)
Get air moving. Indirect airflow from a fan is best. Avoid fluttering. I face my fan into a wall or upwards to diffuse the air flow.
Some staining is likely. Dried mud can be brushed from paper like book textblocks but shouldn't be brushed from photographs, so rinse photos first.
Photograph materials while they're wet and still intact. If you should lose something while salvaging, at least you have a photograph of it so it's not lost forever.
If you cannot dry things immediately, wrap individual items or small clumps that are stuck together in wax paper (ideally. Parchment can work, plastic wrap or ziplocs if you have to) and PUT IT IN A FREEZER. Not an ice chest. The goal is to freeze the water, and ice chests will soak it. Freezing buys you time. It halts water damage until you can deal with things. When it's time to dry, unwrap your items and allow them to fully thaw before even thinking about separating them.
If you find mold, quarantine those materials in sealed plastic bags and freeze. You need professional help. It is not worth getting sick because you tried to clean mold without appropriate protection!
ETA: These techniques also work on that book you dropped in the bathtub or spilled a soda on, just sayin'.
Again please feel free to share this! Fellow conservators, GLAM professionals, or those who have been there, done that, feel free to add to this! Thank you!
Edits:
This was hiding in the tags and is also a good practice! Preparation is key to reducing damage. Which reminds me--store the good stuff on your highest shelves. It won't help in cases like Hurricane Katrina, but a minor-to-medium flood probably won't reach!
