Katrina Aftermath - SMP Silver Salon Forums

SM Publications

Silver Salon Forums - The premier site for discussing Silver.

SMP | Silver Salon Forums | SSF - Guidelines | SSF - FAQ | Silver Sales

The Silver Salon Forums
Since 1993
Over 11,793 threads & 64,769 posts !!
A Curator's Viewpoint Forum

Silver Salon internal search
or

How to Post Photos

REGISTER (click here)

SMP Silver Salon Forums
tline

A Curator's Viewpoint
tline3

Katrina Aftermath

profile | register | preferences | faq | search

SSFFriend: Email This Page to Someone!

next newest topic | next oldest topic

Author	Topic: Katrina Aftermath
Ulysses Dietz Moderator Posts: 1265 Registered: May 99	posted 09-05-2005 11:39 AM The first thing we all think about in the wake of a disaster of this dimension is the people. My family spent our vacation week trying to locate all of our friends and family in New Orleans, and have managed to track down everyone, safe and sound. But as a curator, I was also worried about the museums potentially affected by the hurricane. The New Orleans Museum, so it seems, escaped flooding, and dedicated staff stayed on site to protect the collections. Less happily, the George Ohr Museum, a new institution in Biloxi, might not have survived at all...the riverboat casino that blew ashore seems to have flattened one of its buildings. The potential for lost of cultural heritage during cataclysms like this is enormous. There are great plantation houses all along the gulf coast, and I'll be worrying about all of them. IP: Logged
tmockait Posts: 963 Registered: Jul 2004	posted 09-05-2005 01:59 PM Ulysses, Glad to hear your friends and family are safe. If the invasion of Iraq is any indication, the loss to history and culture will be immense. In addition to physical destruction, the looting of priceless treasures is also a factor. Disasters bring out the worst and the best in people. Tom IP: Logged
ahwt Posts: 2334 Registered: Mar 2003	posted 09-05-2005 04:37 PM My wife's cousin in Biloxi decided to ride out the storm and her house came through with only one broken window. She is close to the Casinos and is very lucky as most of the building were severely damaged or destroyed. She is cooking gumbo today. Luckily my brother-in-law picked his 94 year old mother-in-law in New Orleans the day before Kathina came. Her leaving convinced several of her friends to also leave and they are safe. IP: Logged
blakstone Posts: 493 Registered: Jul 2004	posted 09-08-2005 02:08 AM Being a currently displaced New Orleanian myself, I share your concern. I understand from my sources that the Tulane & Loyola collections are safe from both storm damage and flooding, but that the lack of electricity is a potential threat to climate sensitive items. The Vieux Carre collections (Cabildo, St. Louis Cathedral, Presbytere, Historic New Orleans, etc. ) were possibly flooded, not to mention the grand shops on Royal street and the nearby new Ogden Museum of Art. But perhaps of greatest concern to me is one of the least well-known resources in New Orleans: the Notarial Archives. It was invaluable during my research on the old Creole silversmiths of New Orleans. Having escaped damage during all previous fires, floods and wars it is a remarkably complete collection dating back into the 18th century, rich with details of land ownership, marriage contracts, apprenticeships, naturalizations and on an on. It was housed in a dingy little wing of City Hall and though most of the older records were microfilmed and the originals stored away, I do remember that their idea of "older" was 1840-ish, so complete were the records, with many, many books from the 1850s there on the shelves. My own familiarity with New Orleans geography tells me that the archives were in grave danger of serious flooding; has anyone heard anything about their fate? [This message has been edited by blakstone (edited 09-08-2005).] IP: Logged
blakstone Posts: 493 Registered: Jul 2004	posted 09-08-2005 12:17 PM I was relieved today to find this article in the online edition of the New Orleans Times-Picayne regarding the Notarial Archives. quote: [<gone from the internet> nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_09.html#078009] The Times-Picayune Thursday, September 08, 2005 Archive salvage to begin Rainbow International, a restoration and cleaning company, has been hired to salvage historical documents in New Orleans damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Seven Rainbow International workers will be at the New Orleans Notarial Archives this week to extract water from the building, housing government documents more than 100 years old - including documents from the civil war and blue prints of the city. The documents will then be sent outside the city to be freeze-dried and preserved by the Munters Corp. The New Orleans Notarial Archives holds 40 million pages of signed acts compiled by the notaries of New Orleans over three centuries. They reside in the only archive dedicated to notarial records in the United States. Founded in 1867 when it gathered in the records of colonial and ante bellum notaries, the New Orleans Notarial Archives relates closely to those European and Western Hemisphere repositories that share Louisiana's heritage of civil law. In New Orleans, nearly every property transaction that has occurred since the founding of the city was recorded by, or found its way to, a notary's office. IP: Logged

All times are ET	next newest topic \| next oldest topic
Administrative Options: Close Topic \| Archive/Move \| Delete Topic
	Hop to:

Ultimate Bulletin Board 5.46a

^1. Public Silver Forums (open Free membership) - anyone with a valid e-mail address may register. Once you have received your Silver Salon Forum password, and then if you abide by the Silver Salon Forum Guidelines, you may start a thread or post a reply in the New Members' Forum. New Members who show a continued willingness to participate, to completely read and abide by the Guidelines will be allowed to post to the Member Public Forums.
Click here to Register for a Free password

^2. Private Silver Salon Forums (invitational or $ donation membership) - The Private Silver Salon Forums require registration and special authorization to view, search, start a thread or to post a reply. Special authorization can be obtained in one of several ways: by Invitation; Annual $ Donation; or via Special Limited Membership. For more details click here (under development).

^3. Administrative/Special Private Forums (special membership required) - These forums are reserved for special subjects or administrative discussion. These forums are not open to the public and require special authorization to view or post.

| Home | Order | The Guide to Evaluating Gold & Silver Objects | The Book of Silver