Aloha all,

We at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Library Government Documents &
Maps Department give our heartfelt thanks to all of you who have
expressed concern and offered assistance to us as a result of the
devastating flood that occurred on Saturday. I'm sorry that we haven't
been able to respond to all of your messages, but I'm sure you
understand that our first priority is salvaging our documents.

We have spent the past four days trying to rinse and load as many of
our air photos and maps as possible into freezer trailers. We are still
retrieving documents from the top shelves of our stacks, the only ones
that did not get wet. We estimate that we will be able to save most of
our air photos, about 25% of our maps, and about 10% of our government
documents.

The flood occurred when Manoa Stream, which runs through Manoa Valley,
where the UH campus is located, overflowed due to a combination of
heavy rain and debris clogging the streambed. The debris-filled stream
water flowed through a neighborhood and onto the UH campus, where a
number of buildings were flooded. Due to the peculiar construction of
our library, it was particularly hard-hit. Water reached as high as 8
feet in the Gov Docs workroom where our offices, shelflist,
Congressional Record, and Serial Set were located. Virtually everything
in the workroom was destroyed. We were able to save most of our
shelflist, however.

In Gov Docs open stacks, water reached about 6 feet. At least half of
the documents were knocked off of the shelves, where they lie in mud.
In our closed stacks, many shelves collapsed and very few documents
were salvageable.

In the Map Collection, water covered most of the map cases. The plan
files where our USGS topo quads were filed were overturned in the
flood. We have been able to rescue a great many maps, although many are
covered with silt. We pulled out all of our air photos and hope to be
able to salvage most of them. Unfortunately, many maps and air photos
that had been pulled out for patrons were washed out of the building
and strewn across campus.

We have been blessed by the extraordinary number of people who have
volunteered to help us retrieve documents. It is heartening to know
that so many people care so deeply about our collections. We will need
their support as we work to restore and rebuild our collection.

Thank you to everyone who has offered us documents. At this time, we
have no way of receiving documents; we are not even receiving mail yet.
Our electricity will be out for several weeks. We hope that in the next
week or two we will have a better handle on what is happening and where
we will be relocated.

Many of you have expressed particular concern about Ross Togashi, who
manages the Map Collection. Ross was on vacation in Japan when the
disaster occurred. He has been notified, and as you might expect, he
was devastated to hear the news.

We are deeply grateful for your messages of support and offers of
assistance.

Mahalo,

Gwen Sinclair
University of Hawaii at Manoa Library
Government Documents & Maps Department
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