Preservation is one of the most important tasks for our State Archives employees and local government personnel who manage records. That means knowing what to do if any government documents are damaged.

That’s exactly what happened recently in Ellensburg. Just a couple of nights after attending the State Archives’ disaster preparedness and response training course in Quincy, Kittitas County Assessor Marcia Weyand discovered that heavy rain had flooded the courthouse basement, causing water damage to several boxes of records kept by the assessor’s office.

Following the training she had just received, Weyand took the wet records to a local food warehouse so they could be frozen ASAP, which greatly improves the chances of them being salvaged. The damaged documents later were taken to the State Archives Building in Olympia where they were put into this special machine (photo above) to be freeze-dried, which aids in the recovery process. Archives officials say the documents will be fully salvaged.

State Archivist Jerry Handfield lauded the training program, and gave Weyand special praise for her quick action. He also singled out Central Regional Branch Archivist Brigid Clift, who took the phone call from the county and visited the Kittitas County Courthouse.

State Archives staffers have trained more than 2,500 state and local government employees on records management in the past year.