Katrina Records Recovery and Preservation HURRICANE KATRINA EMERGENCY GRANT

FAIN: PC-50022-06

Mississippi Department of Archives and History (Jackson, MS 39205-0571)
Julia Marks Young (Project Director: February 2006 to April 2009)

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) functions as both the state archives and the state historic preservation office. Because of the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina, archivists from the MDAH have assisted more than thirty municipal and county governments, libraries, historical museums, and historical societies along the Mississippi Gulf Coast in salvaging and stabilizing vital records and historical materials. The focus of this project is to preserve the only extant records salvaged from three municipalities virtually obliterated by Hurricane Katrina-Bay St. Louis, Waveland, and Pass Christian. These records document local government in 179 volumes of ordinances and minutes of city council and mayor-council meetings. The 1892 volume of the "Sea Coast Echo," a weekly newspaper in Bay St. Louis, will be cleaned and stabilized, so that the MDAH can later microfilm this volume, which was not filmed during the U.S. Newspaper Project. In addition, salvaged maps, photographs, and documents from the Pass Christian Historical Society, now completely demolished, will be treated.