{"id":1557,"date":"2020-07-15T20:09:11","date_gmt":"2020-07-15T20:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/?p=1557"},"modified":"2020-07-16T17:18:39","modified_gmt":"2020-07-16T17:18:39","slug":"disaster-diaries-water-leak-at-the-massachusetts-historical-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/2020\/07\/15\/disaster-diaries-water-leak-at-the-massachusetts-historical-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Disaster Diaries: Water Leak at the Massachusetts Historical Society"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is the second post in the COSTEP MA blog series Disaster Diaries. Disaster Diaries shares stories from institutions across Massachusetts that have recently experienced a collections emergency or disaster. To contribute a post, email\u00a0costepma@gmail.com.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by Kathy Griffin, Nora Saltonstall Preservation Librarian, Massachusetts Historical Society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Water Leaks in the Time of Coronavirus<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Preservation Librarian in an\nindependent historical research library and manuscript repository, I am\nresponsible for the institution\u2019s emergency planning and response, including\nmaintaining the disaster plan \u2013 which I call the \u201cEmergency Management Plan\u201d\n(with the notion that not all emergencies are disasters \u2013 at least one hopes\nso).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many cultural heritage institutions\nthat are, or were, closed for the pandemic, were forced by circumstances to\nmake plans for collection care and building care while the staff members were quarantined\nin their homes, and the building shuttered. \nFor our part, members of the Facilities department were appointed to do\nbuilding walk-throughs once a week (and sometimes more often).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our own phased re-opening plan (on\na different schedule than the State plan) consists of three \u201cteams\u201d of staff\nmembers on a three-week rotation, whereby each team (consisting of no more than\n25% of the staff) works for one week in the building and then works from home\nfor two weeks. (If the math feels funny here, that is due to the fact that a\nnumber of staff members need not work in the building at all, because of the\nnature of their jobs.)  The first day of\nour Phased Re-Opening was Monday, July 6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What were the odds that on the very\nfirst day of a carefully-crafted reopening plan, with a very limited number of\nstaff in the building, there would be a water emergency? And yet \u2013 Murphy\u2019s Law\nis ever at the ready!  Within a half-hour\nof the official unlocking of the doors, a corroded valve broke in a wall on the\nfirst floor of the building, and water poured through the wall, onto the floor,\nand through the wall to the basement rooms below the general area of the\nleak.  This problem was quickly detected\nby staff in the building, at least two of whom had experienced water\nemergencies before \u2013 and people sprang into action to move wet books and safeguard\nitems not yet damaged, as well as to turn off the broken water apparatus \u2013\nwhich took some time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was on vacation, enjoying a\nsummer morning walk in the woods, coming down a hill trail in Maine, when my\nsupervisor called me (and I only had my phone because I wanted to take\nphotographs at the top of the trail) \u2013 amazingly, I had reception in the woods\n\u2013 and there was nothing I could do except to talk to people who were dealing\nwith the emergency (and annoy other people on the trail, I am sorry to say).\nAnd oh, the irony and agony of having an emergency management plan but not\nbeing able to do my own part in responding to the emergency \u2013 or to even\noversee what was happening, or to reassure myself that our beloved collections\nwere safe \u2013 these circumstances are painful and difficult to confront in such a\nsituation.  And by the time my supervisor\nhad called me, much of the response had already occurred, so that I could only\nask questions about what HAD been done, rather than offer any advice on what\nSHOULD be done.  I could not even return\nto my workplace and look at the aftermath, because it was not \u201cmy week\u201d for\nbeing back in the building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My colleagues are all dedicated and\nthoughtful people, as devoted to the place as I \u2013 but without an emergency team\nin place, it is hard to respond in quite the same way as would happen during a\nnormal time, that is, not during a pandemic closure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hot Wash (Debrief), or What I Learned<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the vast majority of your staff\nare out of the building, and are not\nallowed to come back into the building<\/em>, you cannot use your emergency team\nin any structured fashion. You simply have to use the staff members who are\navailable.  This would have been fine, except:  we have three full-time Facilities staff, and\none is assigned to each week of the phased re-opening schedule. The Facilities\nManager (who is also a licensed plumber) was NOT assigned to Week One of the\nReopening schedule. He was called in, to deal with the crisis, thus immediately\ntossing out the window the careful team assignments drawn up over weeks of\nplanning for the Reopening.  The\nphysical-distancing rules were also immediately tossed out the window, because\non-site staff had to work together to move wet and endangered collections items\nand equipment from vulnerable locations. Everyone got wet feet because no one\nhad time to find the water-proof boots that are part of our emergency supplies\n(it\u2019s a fairly large building, with six floors and a basement, and there are\nboots stored on two different floors). \nWe have water monitors in the storage stacks and in the basement storage\nrooms, but not on the first floor, so no water monitor went off (this wasn\u2019t an\nissue since the leak was detected by on-site staff, but it could be a problem\nif a leak happens at night).  And\nunfortunately, as was pointed out by a speaker at a symposium I recently\nattended (virtually):  \u201cWe get thrown\ninto response.\u201d Since no one was consulting the emergency plan in the middle of\nan emergency, no one thought to take pictures of the damage in situ<\/em>, or\nto take pictures of the wet materials which were discarded (and the trash was\ncollected before I could inquire). \nLesson learned:  more training\nregarding the basic elements of responding to an emergency, is required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Items that were damaged beyond\nrepair or use, and were not irreplaceable, were discarded.  To be clear: no original manuscripts or rare\nbooks were destroyed. The materials affected on the first floor were all\npublications, mostly our own publications, which exist in duplicate elsewhere.\nWet equipment can be dried out. Supplies affected in the basement, below the\nleak (boxes, board, packing materials) can be replaced.  We have giant fans for drying out the\ncarpeting and for moving air through the rooms where books are drying on\ntables. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photographs of damage are important\nfor making insurance claims, and in this case, there may be some portion of\ndamaged goods that cannot be claimed because we lack definite inventories of\nthe discarded, ruined supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this is how we learn! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the second post in the COSTEP MA blog series Disaster Diaries. Disaster Diaries shares stories from institutions across Massachusetts that have recently experienced a collections emergency or disaster. To contribute a post, email\u00a0costepma@gmail.com. Written by Kathy Griffin, Nora Saltonstall Preservation Librarian, Massachusetts Historical Society. Water Leaks in the Time of Coronavirus As the … Continue reading Disaster Diaries: Water Leak at the Massachusetts Historical Society<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-1557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-disaster-diaries","no-featured-image"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1557"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1562,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557\/revisions\/1562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mblc.state.ma.us\/costepma\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}