Museum continues flood recovery

Posted by Rich Schwartzman on August 10, 2022

Museum trustee Thorpe Moeckel gets ready to cut the ribbon at the new chiller room.

Almost a full calendar year after the Sept. 1 flooding from Hurricane Ida, the Brandywine Conservancy and River Museum of Art held a brief flood recovery event Tuesday afternoon to thank those who helped and to update what has been done and what still needs to be done.

The ground floors of all the buildings in the conservancy’s Chadds Ford campus were damaged or destroyed by floodwaters that crested at 21.4 feet. Virginia Logan, the conservancy’s executive director, said the water flipped over desks, refrigerators in break rooms and destroyed critical files. The ground floor of the museum was filled with water reaching almost to the ceiling.

“On Sept. 2, the water was eight inches below where you’re sitting,” she told the audience seated in the first-floor café at the museum.

She said they knew the flood was going to be heavy and had plans in place, even had a floodgate with a pumping system, but no one expected the flooding to be as bad as it was.

“We had done everything,” Logan said. “We thought we were ready. All the other floods we had that would have sufficed, but this time, it wasn’t enough.”

U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D, PA-5, addresses the audience during the flood recovery event at the Brandywine River Museum of Art.

She told how members of the staff were working on the ground floor, trying to direct the water where it wouldn’t do any harm, but then noticed the water was rising faster than expected. A window had broken on that lower level, and all 12,800 square feet of the lowest level were filled to the ceiling. She added that it’s haunting to think what would have happened had the team not gone upstairs.

System equipment on the museum’s first floor, the electricals and the chillers — the industrial climate control units that regulate temperature and humidity to keep the art safe — were wiped out. However, she said. none of the artworks at the museum were damaged.

Logan said the conservancy had been told the museum would need to be closed for nine to 12 months, but it was back open the week after Thanksgiving last year. She thanked the efforts of Chadds Ford officials, state Rep. Craig Williams, U.S. Rep Mary Gay Scanlon, and other disaster responders from Delaware County and PEMA, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, for their help in getting things back up and running as quickly as they did.

Logan said the conservancy has spent $6 million so far in the recovery process. Electricals have been moved to the fourth floor, and there is now a new chiller room, an elevated room, behind the museum.

There is more to do, however. Logan said they need to flood harden the museum. “It needs to be hard as a boat.”

A crowd of supporters listen to speakers during the flood recovery event in the café at the Brandywine River Museum on Aug. 9.

Tim Boyce, Delaware County’s director of emergency services, told those attending the event that there was a big change from the first time he was at the museum on Sept. 2.

“It’s a tremendous day to be back out here. It smells much better than it did in September,” he said. But he added, “I don’t think people can appreciate the devastation.”

He mentioned that shortly after midnight the night of the storm, Route 1 was already flooded and a motorist was washed away in his car, and at about 2 a.m., a house was underwater. But he praised the facilities and security personnel at the museum.

“During that whole time, the team here was standing guard to save this institution,” he said.

Scanlon jokingly said she was glad she didn’t have to bring her hip boots but then praised the museum staff for its “grit and determination” to clean the facility and get open to the public again.

Williams spoke about the devastation from the storm, how home playground equipment was carried hundreds of yards from a house into Potts Meadow, and how water gushing into the basement of the museum left mud ankle deep and vegetation stuck to the ceiling. But he also praised the community involvement in getting the sites cleaned up.

“That’s the takeaway of what you’re seeing here today. It’s people coming together, not knowing who they were at the outset, but working hard together in finding relief,” he said.

The event ended with a ribbon cutting for the new chiller room.

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.