Disaster Training

Written by Helen Kendall, Conservator

After a spell of heavy rainfall during lockdown, members of staff were called out to deal with a flood at the archives building. Thankfully, no documents were affected and after several hours of mopping and using a wet-vac the majority of the water was cleared. Since the flood, we have been keeping an eye on the temperature and humidity in the affected areas – using dehumidifiers to take some of the moisture out of the air when needed.

This rather eventful episode lead to a recent disaster training session for staff on our return to the archives after enforced lockdown. The training was led by our conservator, Helen, who mimicked water-damaged material using duplicates and deaccessioned material.

Members of staff were dressed in PPE (gloves, masks, and aprons) and set about carefully moving the affected documents to our set up triage area. Once there, the documents could be assessed for damage and any remedial actions taken were recorded. For water-damaged material, several processes can be undertaken:

Midly damaged volumes are placed in a wind tunnel with the pages fanned out for drying

Photographs covered in silt/dirt are cleaned in a water solution and left to dry

Affected rolled plans are carefully unfurled to air dry

Severely damaged documents are wrapped in cling film and put into a freezer to prevent mould

Disaster training is important to ensure our members of staff are prepared for any potential risk that could affect our collections. The service has a written disaster plan that dictates roles for each member of staff and the procedures with dealing with various disasters such as flood, fire, etc. By testing this disaster plan we can better protect the material we hold and preserve it for future users.