[CPProt.net] Katrina ruins some Gulf cultural sites

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Katrina ruins some Gulf cultural sites
September 7, 2005
RICHARD PYLE

Associated Press


As it ripped through Mississippi's coast and submerged New Orleans in a
toxic stew, Hurricane Katrina laid waste to some of the region's cultural
institutions but spared others with slight or moderate damage.

>From Mobile, Ala., where the retired World War II battleship USS Alabama was
listing eight degrees at its pier and its memorial park closed indefinitely,
to Baton Rouge, La., where the zoo lost some of its trees but none of its
animals, the storm wreaked capricious damage on historical sites, science
centers, art museums and botanical gardens.

"We're learning now that the destruction was even greater than we thought,"
Ed Able, president of the American Association of Museums in Washington,
D.C., said Wednesday. "What we need most now is skeleton staffs to protect
these collections - not just in New Orleans but all along the Gulf Coast."

He said that state officials were to meet Wednesday in Baton Rouge to
discuss museum security. "We can't just lock the doors of the museums and
walk away," Able said. The region includes 126 historical and cultural
sites, "literally from A to Z - aquariums to zoos."

New Orleans especially is noted for its gardens and more than 40 museums.
But with most telephones out of service, it has been difficult to contact
many of them for damage reports, Able said. At most institutions, phones
rang busy and e-mails were not answered.

At the New Orleans Museum of Art, which has one of the country's largest
glass collections, a 45-foot metal sculpture, "Virlane Tower," by Kenneth
Snelson and valued at $500,000, was "reduced to a twisted mess in the
lagoon," AAM reported.

Snelson said Wednesday in an e-mail to The Associated Press that another of
his works, an eight-foot tower at the World Trade Center, was destroyed in
the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. "I can't wait to see what happens next
time because I'm running out of towers," he said.

Other outdoor sculptures at NOMA were moved indoors before the storm hit by
museum employees who then stayed to protect the art collection, despite
being urged to leave by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Able said one report he received described the museum as surrounded by
water, "looking like a castle on a hill with a moat around it."

Relying on press reports and information from Web sites and other sources,
the AAM has posted a list of storm-impacted sites extending as far north as
Jackson, Miss., where the Old Capitol Museum of Mississippi History lost
part of its roof and art and natural science museums suffered damage from
leaks.

Some institutions, especially aquariums and gardens, could suffer further
from a lack of power or diesel fuel for generators to maintain life-support
systems.

"The problem is that these institutions made it through the storm but the
worst may be yet to come," Able said.

Most of the salt and fresh water fish were lost at the Audubon Aquarium of
the Americas at the foot of Canal Street in New Orleans, while sea otters,
penguins, raptors and a white alligator were saved, officials said.

Among demolished attractions were the Marine Life Oceanarium in Gulfport,
Miss., and the Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum in Biloxi, Miss. The
Maritime museum featured an exhibit on Hurricane Camille, which devastated
the same area in 1969.

Beauvoir, the Biloxi home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, was
heavily damaged but Davis' papers survived, according to its Web site. The
storm obliterated the historic G.B. Dantzler House, leaving an overturned
tree on the debris. The mansion was recently renovated to become a Mardi
Gras museum.

The hurricane also pushed a multistory casino barge in Biloxi a quarter of a
mile inland where it crushed part of the unfinished Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of
Art, a $30 million project designed by architect Frank Gehry. Scheduled to
open in 2006, it will showcase the cultural legacy of Southern artists.

Some of New Orleans' major cultural institutions, in the Warehouse district
and the French Quarter, suffered "moderate to severe" wind damage but were
on ground high enough to avoid flooding when the levees broke. These
included 12 historic French Quarter properties owned by the Louisiana State
Museum, among them the Presbytere, the Cabildo and the Old U.S. Mint, which
contains historical archives. Preservation Hall, the Quarter's historic jazz
center and a tourist destination, was not seriously damaged but will be
closed indefinitely, according to its Web site.

The National D-Day Museum escaped the flooding. Confederate Memorial Hall,
across the street, also remained dry and its staff safe, according to
curator Pat Ricci, quoted on the AAM Web site.

New Orleans' Ogden Museum of Southern Art came through in good shape,
curator David Houston said. In Ocean Springs, Miss., the Walter Anderson
Museum of Art survived but the artist's studio and other facilities were
damaged, the AAM said.

Longue Vue House & Gardens, a well-known botanical garden in New Orleans,
had "significant tree damage," according to its executive director, Bonnie
Goldblum, but water damage was unknown. The garden is next to the 17th
Street Canal, where one of the levees broke.

ON THE NET

American Association of Museums http://www.aam-us.org

New Orleans Museum of Art http://www.noma.org

Old Capitol Museum of Mississippi History
http://www.mdah.state.ms.us/museum/

Audubon Nature Institute, Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species
http://www.auduboninstitute.org/aoa/index.php

Marine Life Oceanarium http://www.dolphinsrus.com/

Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum http://www.maritimemuseum.org

Jefferson Davis home http://www.beauvoir.org

Ohr-O'Keefe Museum of Art http://www.georgeohr.org/

Preservation Hall http://www.preservationhall.com

National D-Day Museum http://www.ddaymuseum.org

Confederate Memorial Hall http://www.confederatemuseum.com/

Ogden Museum of Southern Art http://www.ogdenmuseum.org/

Walter Anderson Museum of Art http://www.walterandersonmuseum.org/

Longue Vue House & Gardens http://www.longuevue.com/