The following excerpt is from an article posted in the April 25, 2014 edition of The Olympian.
An employee discovered a flood that started in a break room at the Washington State Archives about 7 a.m. Friday, and state officials scrambled to save priceless historical documents.
Archivist Steve Excell said the state is lucky that a pipe burst on a Friday as opposed to a Saturday — otherwise the water would have been running like a garden hose all weekend.
“We happened to catch it in the nick of time,” Excell said.
. . .
. . . archivists had saved numerous records that were touched by water, including birth, marriage and real estate records. Those records could simply be saved by air drying them, he said.
Other documents that are wet might have to be freeze-dried to prevent mold damage, Excell said. He added that he believed no documents were damaged beyond repair.
