Abstract


Randy Silverman

The Day the University Changed: Disaster Response and the First 48-Hours


This program is based on a curriculum developed by the U.S. National Task Force on Emergency Response to help institutions address the first 48-hours following a disaster in the hopes of minimizing damage to irreplaceable historic property. Relying on photographic documentation from the 1995 flood at Colorado State University Library that affected 425,000 volumes (the largest water-related disaster in U.S. history), this talk describes how recovery operations can go wrong with an emphasis on assessing risks; planning the response; recovery budgets, insurance, and contracts; health and safety; and, salvage methodologies.