Baldwin Museum Floods

Alabama Damage A broken water pipe sent water flowing through the Baldwin County Heritage Museum and has started a race against time to save exhibits.

by Debbie Williams

Published: Mon, February 23, 2009 - 5:09 pm CST Last Updated: Mon, February 23, 2009 - 6:34 pm CST

"We dried this out as best we could this big board started splitting out." What is usually the assembly room at the Baldwin County Heritage Museum, now houses a salvage operation says Chairman of the museum board of directors, Ralph Veller. "It was the water heat, the connection to the water heater had failed and it must have run all night."
Water flowed through most of the museum, says Becky Holliday. "When I got here at 7:30 water was coming out the front door across the front porch."
Walk through this building and you walk through Baldwin County history. In 28 years this building has never been damaged by hurricanes or other storms but a water leak, shut it down for a week..
"When you have drywall that goes all the way down to the floor it begins to seep up into the wall that's a concern because of mold and so forth and then anything sitting flat on the floor is going to have water seep up," says Veller.
So exhibits are now up off the floor, carpet has ripped up, baseboards removed and for the most part, the water is gone thanks to volunteers like Coletta Bailey. "You know you think well we've got to deal with that and then you get over it and you start to work and say lets get it back to where it was."
The museum will re-open to the public Wednesday with another story to add to it's collection of Baldwin County history
The museum receives 32 thousand dollars from the county each year and survives on donations and volunteers.
Damage from the flood is estimated to cost between eight to ten thousand dollars.

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