All staff of the Botanical Museum today were occupied generating a makeshift collection of surplus samples for the big "Flooding Disaster" test tomorrow. The samples will be flooded to various degree and the staff trained to sort quickly what can be saved or not. Like a war-time triage.
On a scale of severity, fire ranks highest, then flooding (or more likely, a burst water pipe or roof leaks), and the third danger is insect attack. They have very good control of the latter, whilst the two higher up on the scale requires training and realistic tests. However, like most museums world-wide in which paper-based collections are stored, in the case of a fire a large part if not all of the valuable collections may be destroyed. If the fire is rapidly brought under control, however, water damage needs to be mitigated and thus the triage training is required.
Some of the younger girls brought their kids who were extremely happy to dunk old books into water-filled buckets.
