July 23, 2010 Documents at the the Milwaukee County Historical Society Damaged by Water (javascript:showOdiogoReadNowFrame ('270710', 'documents at the the milwaukee county historical society damaged by water', '0', 290, 55);) Volunteers are scrambling to dry out records from the early 20th century after water poured into the basement of the Milwaukee County (Wisconsin) Historical Society this morning. Steve Daily, curator of the research library, said some 50 to 60 boxes containing court records from the 1920s and 1930s got wet. He said about a dozen volunteers are carefully removing the wet documents and laying them out to dry. "We could sure use a few more fans," Daily said, since they only have three to help blow over the sodden records, which are mostly used for genealogical research. You can read more in an article by Bruce Vielmetti of the Journal Sentinel at _http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/99107124.html_ (http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/99107124.html) Does YOUR society have a disaster plan in place in case of damage to documents or other artifacts? Posted by Dick Eastman on July 23, 2010 in _Societies_ (http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/societies/) | _Permalink_ (http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/07/documents-at-the-the-milwaukee-county-his torical-society-damaged-by-water.html) Comments (http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/07/documents-at-the-the-milwaukee-county-historical-society-damaged-by-water/comments/atom.xml) You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the _comment feed_ (http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/07/documents-at-the-the-milwa ukee-county-historical-society-damaged-by-water/comments/atom.xml) for this post. They need more fans? They need some archival expertise. Or at the very least, they need to read the Primer on Disaster Preparedness, Management, and Response: Paper-Based materials. _http://www.archives.gov/preservation/emergency-prep/disaster-prep-primer.pdf_ (http://www.archives.gov/preservation/emergency-prep/disaster-prep-primer.pdf) It may very well be time to bring in the freezers. Posted by: Jude | _July 23, 2010 at 11:12 PM_ (http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/07/documents-at-the-the-milwaukee-county-historical- society-damaged-by-water.html?cid=6a00d8341c767353ef013485a7de25970c#comment -6a00d8341c767353ef013485a7de25970c) They're storing the documents in the basement? The building's along the banks of the Milwaukee River! Posted by: _Dennis Lohr_ (http://www.lohr-genealogy.com/) | _July 24, 2010 at 09:59 AM_ (http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2010/07/documents-at-the-the-milwaukee-county-historical-society-damaged-by-water.html?ci d=6a00d8341c767353ef013485a9e784970c#comment-6a00d8341c767353ef013485a9e7849 70c)