Saving Archives in New Orleans

An early report, proceed to the bottom of this post for an update. Taken from:
9/5/2005, 6:02 p.m. The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP): Specialists working for the New Orleans Notorial Archives have been stymied while trying to get downtown to rescue some of the most historic documents in the city's history, from original land grants to slave sale records and title records. Federal troops have refused to let them through checkpoints into the city.

The Notorial Archives hired Munters Corp., a Swedish document salvage firm that freezes and then freeze-dries records to slowly remove moisture from them, to rescue the documents. But Munters refrigerated trucks were turned away by uniformed troops as they tried to enter the city, said Stephen Bruno, custodian of the archives. The trucks were headed to the Civil District Courthouse on Poydras Street, where many of the city's real estate documents are housed, and to the former Amoco building also on Poydras Street, which houses historic documents such as a letter from Jean Lafitte to Washington demanding payment for his expenditures during the Battle of New Orleans.

Information from: The Times-Picayune, http://www.timespicayune.com

From the Notarial Archives Site, an update:
"From Day One of Hurricane Katrina, we began immediate rescue-and-recovery operations to secure the valuable records at both locations of Notarial Archives. We had a prearranged relationship with Munters, an international recovery firm, and hired them to assess the damage caused by high winds and rising water. We were one of the first archival institutions in New Orleans to get access and to attempt rescue." For more visit: http://www.notarialarchives.org/hurricane.htm