[PRCo] Re: PTM flood

[Dennis F. Cramer]

This came from Larry Lovejoy at the museum.

How bad is it?   Very bad.    The attached picture was taken at about 8:00
p.m. Friday evening.   There was already about 15 inches of water in the
shop and visitors center and the water was still rising. The entire length
of the ISTEA track extension was under water.  Main Street crossing was
under about two feet of water and there was a foot of water over the tracks
at Fairgrounds.  It was just to the elevation of the kitchen floor when I
left.    When I finished dinner with Dan & Tim about 10:00, it was raining
even harder than before.   I expect that we'll have two feet of water in the
shop and visitors before the water starts to recede.   Unfortunately, 5326,
3618 and WP1 are all in the shop building along with RG2.   The latter is
probably OK, but the traction motors in the other three cars, as well as the
air compressor motor on 5326 are soaked.

Clearly, we'll be cleaning up for weeks and it will take months more to
recover.    The most immediate need will be to salvage paper, since
everything that isn't at least two feet off the floor will be soaked.   The
recommended approach for soaked paper is freeze drying.   Anybody that has
extra space in their freezer will need to take a pile of soggy paper home
with them.   The freezing will prevent mildew from forming and the
frost-free action of the freezer will eventually dry it out.

This is clearly the biggest catastrophe to hit PTM ever.   We'll need lots
of help cleaning up.


Dennis F. Cramer--Teacher-Trombonist-Historian-Conductor
www.geocities.com/armconband