Schoharie County, NY Rescues Three Tractor-Trailers Of Documents Through Remediation And Digitization

Tropical storm leaves damaged documents in its wake

In late August 2011, Tropical Storm Irene flooded Schoharie County in upstate New York. The Schoharie Creek rose to record levels, causing massive destruction of roads, homes, and businesses. More than 1,700 boxes of Schoharie County court documents dating back to 1795 were among the casualties. Completely inundated under five feet of water, the records were retrieved and treated with a remediation process to dry, restore, and preserve them.

When the process was complete, many of the valuable historical records were extremely fragile. The array of documents included a wide range of types, sizes and conditions. What’s more, many of the items were bound into oversized books, increasing the difficulty of handling them. Schoharie County faced an enormous challenge of digitizing all the records to preserve them for their historical value and also to meet regulatory mandates.

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