Posted on 10/20/2003 1:03:16 PM PDT by HenryLeeII
JAMES CITY -- Despite a staggering estimate of $11.4 million in damages, Colonial National Historical Park representatives insist that artifacts flooded in the Historic Jamestowne Visitor Center by Hurricane Isabel will be restored and ready when a new collections building opens by 2007.
Let's hope so, because Congress is watching.
“I'm going to be anxiously waiting to see what they find,” Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-1st) said this week, referring to a National Park Service investigation into the flooding. “I'm hoping we didn't do anything wrong, and we can learn from it if we were to have another disaster.”
Elaine Sevy, a spokesman in the office of National Park Service director Fran P. Mainella, said that special agents from the Visitor & Resource Protection branch are investigating what happened.
One curator at Jamestown said that before the hurricane, the staff prepared for a few inches of water. The water in the basement measured 5 feet.
Part of the blame may lie in where the building was constructed on the island. The center was built in 1957 under a federal directive that buildings be close to the historic resources.
Much of the high ground on the island already had archaeological sites, the church, monument, and buildings owned by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. That left the area near the swamp and marsh.
Warren Billings, head of the history department at the University of New Orleans and a member of the federal commission developing plans for Jamestown 2007, said people have known about flooding problems on the island for 400 years.
The park's management plan that suggested a new, hurricane-resistant collections building cited the possible damage from floodwaters.
One news story said Bill Kelso, head of the Jamestown Rediscovery project that found the original fort, offered to let the Park Service put some papers and other materials in his collections building. That building was built to withstand hurricane-strength winds and flooding, and suffered no damage.
The story said the Park Service turned down Kelso's offer.
Henry Miller, director of research at Historic St. Mary's City in Maryland, was quoted in a newspaper story as saying the Park Service “took woefully inadequate measures” considering the importance of the collection.
Sevy would not discuss specifics of the investigation, but said the investigation is looking at both procedures and Park Service personnel. Damage not only wrecked the collections in the Visitor Center basement, it left the entire building unusable.
She said the investigation is in the early stages and had no estimate of how long the process will take.
“It's my understanding there still is quite a bit to be done,” she said.
Park Service spokesman Mike Litterst put estimated damage to overall Park Service properties at $20 million, of which half is the artifacts. More than 900,000 archaeological finds from the basement have been trucked to Fort Lee for restoration.
Fort Lee is one of 21 different work sites spread across four national park units in eastern and central Virginia struck three weeks ago by Hurricane Isabel.
The park chose Fort Lee beacuse of its proximity to Jamestown and because it was available for free, Litterst said. As the restoration continues, the artifacts will be moved to interim storage closer to the Historic Triangle.
Fort Lee also is home to the Army Quartermaster Corps, which includes forensic training in mortuary science.
At a press conference earlier this month to announce the closing of the damaged Visitor Center, park superintendent Alec Gould said the artifacts should be ready in time for the 400th.
Litterst reaffirmed that on Thursday. “At this point, we haven't lost anything,” he said. The collection, or at least the vast majority of it, should be returned in time for 2007 festivities.
“Some things, like archival material and paper products, take a little longer,” Litterst explained. “Those have to be placed in cold storage upwards of a year just for conservation purposes. That's the process of restoration.”
Litterst said items that likely can't be restored are some of the Jamestown 2007 commemorative items such as sweatshirts. The park will replace that stock, he said.
At least one archaeology expert doubts whether the freeze-dry method will save the paper items damaged by flooding.
In a letter to the Gazette published Oct. 8, Ivor Noel Hume said the damage is lasting. He is the former head of archeology at Colonial Williamsburg and a recognized leader in the field of archaeology.
“Freeze-drying will halt further disintegration,” he said. “But the initial damage to paper and linen drawings floating in water cannot be undone.”
Noel Hume also worried that provenance numbers for metal objects may have been washed away, and wax-coated iron items may have suffered irreversible new decay.
“Pottery and glass that took years to piece together will fall apart and may never be put back together, not because it cannot be done but because a financially stretched Park Service has other more pressing priorities.”
The damage estimate is based on the cost to store the items now at Fort Lee, the restoration, and the return to the new building at Jamestown.
The flooding was caused by a storm surge that came from the pitch and tar swamp between the Visitor Center and parking lot, rather than from the river.
A National Park Service newsletter about the work with the artifacts noted they were removed from the Visitor Center on 71 pallets and trucked to Fort Lee.
Sara Wolf, director of the Northeast Museum Services Center for the Park Service, said the recovery effort is the largest her staff has worked on in the United States.
“We're making sure the things we're learning get shared with other curators,” she was quoted as saying. “This collection is pretty sturdy, and it's coming through extremely well.”
She estimated that there would be “minimal loss” of artifacts “less than five percent.”
There is speculation that responsibility over the damage could eventually lead to a congressional hearing. Any decision on that will likely come after the Park Service investigation is completed.
Maybe the NPS doesn't consider them valuable?
Not really. Do some genealogical research for records 1860-1890 for Southern ancestors. It seems that an awful lot of Southern courthouses burned - I wonder why?
That's some serious damage!
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