Iowa City under water

The art museum and libraries at the University of Iowa seem to have made it through the flood. (photo courtesy UI News Service) The buildings have taken on water, but collections have been moved to high ground. According to a post on the ACUMG-L, the university libraries enlisted “an army of volunteers” to move books out of their basement. No library collections items were damaged or are in danger. The entire U of I Arts campus has been hit hard by the flood. Thankfully, the U of I Art Museum had a disaster plan, and put it into action:

The UI Museum of Art has a disaster plan which was implemented last week. On a proactive basis the fine arts insurance company, Lloyds of London, has provided an emergency response team with fine art expertise. Three out-of-state conservators have been on-site preparing objects to be transported off campus as needed. Professional fine art packers and shippers are assisting museum and university staff. We have security staff on-site 24 hours a day. There has been no significant intrusion of water to the facilities.

The U of I has set up a flood relief fund.

A report from the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art is up on the National Trust historic sites blog:

“The Grant Wood Studio is fine and the situation at the Museum of Art is very much under control. The flood waters stopped several feet short of the Museum, but we received about 9 inches of water which backed up through drains in the basement of the Museum wing. By tonight (Sunday), all of that water should be pumped out.

“As the water began to appear and rise in the basement (I literally do not remember which night that was), we reacted immediately. Thanks to an incredible group of staff and volunteers, a considerable amount of artwork was removed from art storage into upper floor galleries or was moved to higher places within art storage. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and we believe that some artwork remained as low as 15 inches off the ground.”

Water is being removed from the building and a team of conservators came in today to assess the damage. Also, they can’t use any volunteers at the moment.

Minnesota museums seem to have made it through the flood just fine. I’ll keep you posted.