[NHCOLL-L:5532] Fwd: Advices about flooded collections

[Wendy Schultz]

Knowledgeable list~
I am forwarding this e-mail for an international colleague on the 
vertebrate paleontology listserve.  If you have any suggestions please 
reply directly to Dr. Gilles Cuny at Gilles at snm.ku.dk.   Thank you,
    ~~Wendy Beins


-----Original Message-----
From: Gilles Cuny <Gilles at snm.ku.dk>
To: VRTPALEO at usc.edu
Sent: Tue, Jul 5, 2011 12:45 pm
Subject: Advices about flooded collections


Dear All,Our collection have been under severe flooding this weekend, 
and we found them within 50 cm water on Sunday morning. As the 
collections are in old cabinets, the wood is now completely swollen and 
all our lower drawers are stuck. We have removed the drawers on top to 
help them dry and just got dryers in the collection today (could not do 
it before as we were left without power by the flood). Tomorrow, we 
shall finish cleaning up and desinfect the rooms. What I would like to 
know is what to do with the stuck drawers. I think that it would be 
better to leave them dry slowly rather than to force the drawers out 
while the material is still soaked with water. I am particularly afraid 
of damaging the labels and/or loosing specimens numbers. I would 
appreciate if any of you have any experience of such situation and 
could advise me.Thanks a lot in advance,All the best,Gilles
Dr. Gilles Cuny The Natural History Museum of Denmark Øster Voldgade 
5-7 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark Tel: (+45) 3532 2364, fax: (+45) 3532 
2325 Mobile: (+45) 2026 4436