TCHM Storm Damage Archive Repair

In the early morning hours of Friday, July 7th a severe line of storms hit the Grand Haven area with winds approaching 100 miles per hour.  In the course of that storm, a large white pine tree fell on the Community Archive and Research Center- better known as the CARC. 
Staff quickly responded, following up on notifications from our security monitoring company.  It was clear that the tree had punctured the roof over the paper archives in multiple places.
Thanks to quick staff response following the protocol of our disaster plan, 70% of boxes housed in the paper archive were able to be removed with little to no damage. The other 30%, however, was soaked with rain water which flooded the space to 3 inches deep of standing water. The museum was able to contract with a professional environmental disaster cleaning and document drying service from Charlotte, North Carolina who arrived on site Saturday and began the arduous process of drying out the building and contents. Thanks to these actions, the Tri-Cities Historical Museum archives are expected to make a complete recovery.

However, steps to dry out the archives and remediate the building for mold and mildew growth that come with water damage will not be inexpensive. The museum has received word from our insurance adjustor that the building restoration portion will be covered, but the document services will only be covered to an extent.

We are asking for everyone’s support to help us not only cover the cost of the document drying not paid for by insurance, but to help us purchase new archival safe document boxes to store the items, which will cost over $20,000. In order to ensure the safety of these paper documents, these materials are needed by late August.