The Importance of Preparation

Motivation for Planning

Biloxi Public Library

Although it is widely recognized in the library and archival community that hurricanes are a potential source of total destruction for their institutions, many archivists struggle to find the time and motivation to regularly monitor their disaster planning activities. This is understandable, given the multiple directions in which archivists are constantly being pulled throughout their daily activities, particularly for archival staff at small repositories, or lone arrangers. However, it is imperative that disaster plans are updated and staff briefed on the changes annually, at the very least. During Richard Pearce-Moses's SAA presidency and immediately following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, SAA launched a program called the MayDay Initiative, which, according to its founders, is "intended as the day we take personal and professional responsibility to do something to protect our collections."¹ Each year, on May 1st, archivists are encouraged to spend the day revisiting their disaster plans, familiarizing themselves and their staff with the locations of disaster response materials, replenishing supplies, conducting fire drills or other emergency situation rehearsals, and otherwise preparing themselves for a disaster situation. This is the perfect time to revisit your hurricane response policy, particularly because May 1st occurs just prior to hurricane season, late enough that any developments made will still be fresh in your mind when hurricanes begin to occur in late summer, but early enough that any necessary changes can be made before any real threats arise.

Lessons Learned from Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy hit the shores of New Jersey and New York on October 29, 2012, causing massive long-term power outages, flooding in excess of 3-5 feet, and structural damage at libraries in both states, particularly at branches in coastal areas.² NYU's Frederick L. Erhman Medical Library remained closed months after Sandy to repair damages, and staff were still not permitted to enter the basement in January 2013, due to health concerns.³ Rockaway Libraries' Avenue Branch lost about 80% of its collection.⁴ New York's Eyebeam Art and Technology Center lost $250,000 worth of equipment and faced tremendous difficulties when about 1300 items in its archive, which completely lacked any sort of inventory or cataloging system, were damaged.⁵ It appears as though Eyebeam lacked a disaster plan, and although the described library systems likely had plans in place, it is clear that they must have failed or been inadequate.

Brooklyn Public Library, Coney Island Branch

devastating damage to several libraries and archival repositories in both states. Although it is still too early to access peer-reviewed, published accounts of recovery efforts, local news reports showed the depth of the damage in an apparently unprepared region. Libraries in the New York City borough of
Queens were buried under 3-5 feet of floodwater, and even those libraries that were not greatly damaged during the storm were forced to close due to power outages or blocked roads.

Brooklyn Public Library, Coney Island Branch

Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina made landfall at the very end of August, 2005. The force of the water surge it created caused the federal levee system to fail in places, causing massive flooding throughout New Orleans and other areas of the Gulf Coast. Reflecting on the disaster, Biloxi Public Library staff member Jamie Ellis said "The important lesson we learned is that you can never start preparing early enough." Ellis and other staff members prepared in advance by boarding up windows and moving rare materials to a vault across the street, but they did not give themselves time to adequately prepare. Anticipating high winds and water damage from above, they covered material on upper floors with plastic before evacuating to safe locations several hundred miles away. However, they did not anticipate (nor prepare for) the tremendous amount of flooding resulting from the storm surge. In retrospect, Ellis commented that had staff at Biloxi Public Library had time to fully implement their plan and move materials to their usual "safe" spaces, much more material would have been lost, since these spaces were most affected by flooding.6

SUNO Library, September 2006

Andy Corrigan of Howard-Tilton Memorial Library at Tulane University had a similar experience. "But when the actual disaster occurred, very little in the plan could be used...the plan had not anticipated the level of building remediation and climate stabilization that a real disaster can require. Nor did it anticipate the huge scale and the logistical complexity of the response that would really be needed." Howard-Tilton Library lost over 483,000 volumes and 1.4 pieces of microfiche, despite contracting with an international disaster mitigation company, BELFOR.⁷

Howard-Tilton Memorial Library

Some institutions fared better. SAA's Hurricane Damage Assessment Team traveled throughout the Gulf Coast investigating the damage caused by Katrina. In many repositories, anticipation of flooding resulted in materials being moved to upper floors or secure vaults in buildings such as banks, and this saved thousands of records. In other cases, however, roofs were torn off of buildings, causing entire floors of material to become waterlogged from above.⁸ In all of the above cases, disaster plans were in place, but found to be lacking or inoperable when it came time to apply them practically.

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¹ Pearce-Moses, Richard, and Elizabeth Yakel. "The “MayDay” project: promoting disaster preparedness." OCLC Systems & Services, Vol. 23, no. 1 (2007): 16 - 20. [See Annotated Bibliography]
² Schwartz, M. "NY, NJ Libraries Take Stock After Sandy." Library Journal, Vol. 137, no. 19 (2012): 10.
³ Schwartz, M, McGuire V, Warhurton B. "NYU MEDICAL LIBRARY STILL RECOVERING FROM SANDY." Library Journal, Vol. 138, no. 1 (2013): 16.
⁴ Springen, K. "Hurricane Sandy: The Road to Recovery." Publishers Weekly, Vol. 260, no. 12 (2013): 22-23.
⁵ Hartman, Anne. "After the Storm: Eyebeam Finds Silver Linings in Hurricane Sandy Damage." Archival Outlook (May/June 2013): 6-7. Accessed 20 October 2013. http://www2.archivists.org/sites/all/files/2013-3-AO_0.pdf
⁶ Ellis, Jamie. "Lessons learned: the recovery of a research collection after Hurricane Katrina." Collection Building, Vol. 26, no. 4 (2007): 108 - 111. [See Annotated Bibliography]
⁷ Corrigan, Andy. "Disaster: response and recovery at a major research library in New Orleans." Library Management, Vol. 29 no. 4/5 (2008): 293 - 306. Accesed 20 October 2013. http://www.emeraldinsight.com.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/journals.htm?articleid=1727991&show=abstract#sthash.KnKPPWLQ.dpuf. [See Annotated Bibliography]
⁸Carmichael, David, Debra Hess Norris and Richard Pearce-Moses. Report of Hurricane Katrina Damage Assessment. Accessed 20 October 2013. http://www.archivists.org/news/katrina_damagereport.pdf. [See Annotated Bibliography]