Jenna Johnson
palmettoreport@gmail.com

(Rock Hill, S.C.) — The Louise Pettus Archives Building is home to one-of-a-kind artifacts relating to Winthrop University’s history, but recent flooding in the basement left both digital and physical items damaged or lost.

The building, located at 700 Cherry Rd., was impacted by a small flood after an air conditioning unit failed and water poured onto a server, which led to the destruction of mostly digital items.

“It seemed like at first, we’d lost every single thing ever, that we’ve ever done and put on a computer in this building,” said archivist Grace Miller.

Items that are scanned and received digitally, such as documents, videos and pictures, are stored on a server in the basement, which is where most of the damage from the flood occurred.

“We had a major piece of equipment that failed and water went all down on our server. Not very much of the papers got wet, but the server was toast,” said Gina White, director of the archives.

However, a new computer server was set up three months before the flood, so only newly added digital collections were lost.

“So, we actually were able to recover everything that we had done from our old server, like up until March. So, instead of completely starting over, we just lost a couple months,” Miller said.

The damage could have been worse, considering documents and items within the archives building are stored in ways that preserve their original quality, but leave them susceptible to water damage.

“There’s a very specific way you have to preserve certain things,” said Sophia Burdette, a student intern at the archives.

“So, documents typically are preserved in a plastic sheet and a lot of these plastic sheets actually have to have some type of hole in them. That way the document can still breath, but still be preserved,” Burdette said. “Art pieces are typically preserved in glass cases or just like any other type of box, but truthfully, most things have to be preserved very differently.”

While the flooding was only a setback for the team, other issues within the building made it difficult to continue working as well.

“Combined with all the problems with our HVAC system and not being able to work in the building, because (of) summer heat, it was just a really rough time this summer. But, we are getting back on track,” Miller said.

The archives team is currently back in the building and working to organize and restore the collections that were impacted.

Many of the collections within the building relate not only to Winthrop’s history, but also the history of the Catawba Region. There are even Latin American artifacts stored in the basement.

“Our main purpose is to collect and preserve the history of Winthrop, but starting in the early 70s we started collecting other things that we either support in the curriculum or preserve the history of this area,” White said.

She says she’s gotten questions about the archives from all around the world, due to the rarity and importance of the items there.