THE REPORTER:
Hurricane Isabel Hits Custom House
All of Maryland braced for Hurricane Isabel in mid-September,
expecting high winds and heavy rain, but the most severe damage
was meted out by a storm surge of nearly seven feet, as a strong
southeast wind pushed up the Chesapeake Bay. The homes and businesses
along the Chester River, including the College's Custom House,
were hard hit. Townspeople maneuvered kayaks, canoes and rowboats
through the low-lying streets of Chestertown as the water rose
to levels not seen in decades.
Weather forecasters predicted the hurricane would strike the
Chesapeake Bay region directly. In anticipation of loss of power,
the College administration cancelled classes beginning Wednesday
afternoon and encouraged students within commuting distance
to ride out the storm at home. About 250 students remained on
campus, where only one inch of rain fell and two trees were
lost. No property damage was sustained.
The College's Custom House, located at the foot of High
Street on the Chester River, did not fare as well, as nearly
four feet of water entered the ground level where the archaeology
lab is located.
In preparation for Hurricane Isabel, John Seidel, assistant
professor of anthropology and environmental studies, made sure
that all valuable equipment was moved to the upper floors. Doors
were sandbagged and some forty boxes of documents were relocated
to higher ground. But the flooding was worse than anyone had
imagined. The surge literally pushed up from underneath the
floorboards of the historic structure, punching and buckling
them in many places.
Upon discovering three feet of water in the lab Friday morning,
Seidel, along with art history professor Donald McColl, C. V.
Starr Fellow Adam Goodheart and staff archaeologist Liz Seidel,
began moving everything above waterline to the upper floors
of the historic structure. Neighbors came to their aid and,
within minutes, formed a human chain in waist-deep water to
save what they could. Without the help of neighbors, the rising
tide would have taken much more.
"We were very fortunate to have such little damage when
you consider what the majority of the Chesapeake region sustained,"
said Seidel.
After the surge receded and the water was pumped out, the cleanup
began. One unfortunate circumstance of the flooding was the
collapse of shelving holding boxes of handwritten research notes.
In an effort to mitigate damage from growing molds, the papers
were refrigerated until they could be dried one sheet at a time.
In the weeks following the storm, John Seidel and his colleagues
assessed the impact of Isabel to the collections and research
materials at the Custom House.
"Now that we have had time to sort through materials, it is
clear that we fared much better than originally thought," Seidel
said. "Of the six collections in the lab (six different research
projects and sites), five are completely intact and in perfect
shape. The sixth, from this summer's work at Poplar Grove,
was being processed when the storm hit. We feared that many
of the unprocessed paper artifact bags had been destroyed. It
turns out that only six bags out of 90 were lost. However, all
of the diagnostic materials had been removed from these six
for analysis—these materials are intact, and the loss is therefore
trivial."
All research notes and photographs have now been dried and inventoried,
Seidel explained, and it appears that there were no losses to
these materials.
"Given the circumstances, the status of our collections
is remarkable. We have the quick and very professional actions
of our staff—Liz Seidel and Teresa Fewlass— and several students—Brynn
Torelli and Chris Mears—to thank for this. Their long hours
of work immediately after the storm made the difference, and
they have been hard at work ever since. They did a remarkable
job under very trying conditions."
PHOTO: IAN BUNCH
Hurricane Isabel flooded the College's Custom House, damaging
materials stored in the archaeology lab.
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