The Importance of Disaster Preparedness!

A Blog Post by Melina Avery

Last Tuesday afternoon, if you were in Baltimore, you may have noticed a major deluge that hit the city mid-afternoon. Being a Basement Level Intern, I was only marginally aware of the situation until I emerged from the basement at around 4 p.m. The staff had sprung into action! At first I couldn’t tell what was going on – everyone was wet, barefoot and, while not panicked, clearly in the midst of a Situation.


As it turned out, the heavy rain, a blocked drain and a sinkhole on Watson Street had conspired to cause flooding in the Lloyd Street Synagogue, which is a very important building and component of the JMM; in addition to its intrinsic historical value, it houses JMM exhibits and is host to an archaeological excavation into Baltimore history. As you can imagine, news of a possibly damaging flood to this space caused widespread concern among the staff and interns, but luckily, we are all museum professionals and know the importance of a disaster plan!

The blocked drain and...

...the sinkhole the caused so many problems.

Flooding is one of the most common museum disasters and the JMM, like any responsible museum, is always well-prepared for the possibility, even if we always hope it won’t actually happen. For example, as an MA student in art conservation, I had to prepare a disaster plan and mock-up cache of emergency supplies for a flood at an imaginary institution so that I would be prepared to handle a flood situation at any institution I ended up working for.

After learning what had happened, I helped photo archivist / development coordinator Rachel K. and senior collections manager Jobi grab all the blankets, mops and brooms in sight and headed out through the downpour to join the other staff and interns at the LSS and help with what was left of the situation.

Our trash can full of absorbent U-Haul blankets

The LSS was full of barefoot, drenched but highly efficient people who had already gotten most of the water out or down a drain.

The dampened staff and interns

All I had to do was help lay down blankets to sop up standing water near the front entrance and prevent further incursion.

Blankets sealing up the door

Squeezing out the door

Shutting the door with blankets in place, after squeezing out

The basement entrance and exhibit area, and the Mikvah excavation, were flooded during the storm, but the only possible long-term damage is to the Mikvah excavation area, the structural integrity of which may be compromised. The long-term consequences of the flood are not yet known, therefore, but we do know that it could have been much worse if not for the quick action of JMM staff and interns.

The flooded excavation

A moment of levity after the team has dealt with the crisis.

Webinar: Disaster Recovery for Electronic Records

Jobi: When I heard that SAA (Society of American Archivists) was presenting a webinar about disaster planning for electronic records I thought it would be an excellent learning opportunity for the collections staff and collections interns. What I discovered in the end is that there is yet another hole in our EPP (Emergency Preparedness Plan) and I need to develop a clearly written and fully executable plan in the event of an emergency. While the EPP includes the steps to take to recover the objects, archives, photographs and the buildings for water, fire or smoke damage (and steps to mitigate the potential for these types of damage in the first place), computer files and electronic records are not addressed in the plan. At all. Ugh! More work for me. But, I guess it is always good to discover flaws in the plan before you need to use it in a true emergency. Fortunately, William W LeFevre, the Reference Archivist at Wayne State University who did the presentation, provided a good blue print to follow.

Passersby wonder what everyone is doing in Jobi's office

Julie: The disaster recovery seminar produced useful information that I didn't know before on how to preserve data in the event of flooding--did you know that dvds, cds and even flash drives should be kept wet and rinsed in distilled water? After it air dries, the data may not be lost after all.

Interns watch the webinar

Brittney: I participated in a webinar about disaster planning, specifically about electronic records. I think it was an important webinar because even though the museum has an extensive disaster plan, salvaging electronic records is not currently included. The webinar discussed developing a disaster plan as well as disaster recovery, all very important topics, especially because the museums records and collections are going to increasingly be electronic.

Jobi talks about the flaws in our existing Emergency Plan

Kristin: I attended the "Electronic Records and Disaster Planning" webinar with Intern Wrangler Jobi, and two fellow interns. It was very informative and reminded me of some of the issues covered in a Digital Preservation class I took this past Spring semester. I learned that it is important to have a Disaster Recover Plan for electronic records because many types of storage media are not very stable.

Everyone is excited to learn about disaster recovery for electronic records!