Burnaby Village Museum suffered only very minor damage in the earthquake
this morning:
- one separation crack in the museum workshop where the ceiling joined a
wall
- temporary telephone outage for outgoing calls, though we could receive
calls.
- temporary Internet outage.
- Cell phone system overloaded and no calls could be made.
Some of our staff heard the rumbling truck sound and felt the earthquake
(centred around Seattle apparently at 6.4 on Richter scale) but I was down
in the museum storage area and did not know it had occurred. Locally, power
was out to about 30,000 homes according to one news report but our museum
was spared this time.

Five minutes before the earthquake I had been discussing some earthquake
damage prevention measures with a staff member i.e. bolting metal lips on
shelves to help keep artifacts from 'walking' off the shelves during
earthquakes, and strapping heavy loads to pallets that sit up high in the
warehouse.

Ten minutes before the earthquake my manager had been discussing automatic
water shut-off valves for our building with a city official in case water
lines broke in an earthquake.

Moral of the story? Keep the pressure on for earthquake planning and
preparation for your museum (and home) if you live in an earthquake zone.

Colin Macgregor Stevens
Curator
Burnaby Village Museum
City of Burnaby, British Columbia, CANADA

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).