On Monday, August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the gulf coast of the United States, bringing death and destruction as one of the five deadliest hurricanes in United States history. The most severe loss of life and property damage occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, which flooded as floodwalls collapsed at key interior points in the city’s drainage canals, inundating 80% of the city and many areas of neighboring parishes. Almost 2,000 people lost their lives in Hurricane Katrina and the destruction has been estimated in the billions of dollars in damage, making it the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

Among the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, the basement of Tulane University’s Howard-Tilton Memorial Library - an area about the size of a football field - was flooded with about eight feet of water. The basement housed a music library and a very large collection of government documents, newspapers, and microforms. In addition to the main library, Jones Hall, which houses the library’s Special Collections, received about four feet of water.

In those initial days after Katrina, both of Tulane’s damaged buildings became ticking time bombs for its collections. The accumulation of water in the basement produced incredible amounts of humidity while the loss of power shut off any circulating air. With it being summer in New Orleans at the time, the interior temperature in these closed-off structures quickly climbed to dangerous levels as toxic mold started to take over.

As part of the university's campus-wide emergency plan, an international disaster management company, Belfor, responded to the scene almost immediately with a barrage of huge generators and specialized equipment. These first responders installed in both buildings an elaborate series of giant tubes to pump dry air throughout each floor in danger. Water was quickly removed and the battle against humidity and mold began.

Throughout the recovery process, Tulane was able to salvage thousands of materials from the basement of the Howard-Tilton and Jones Hall. In summary, much was lost during Katrina, but the library has been able to restore more from these basement collections than it initially appeared in those dreadful first few days and weeks immediately after the hurricane. Today, the upper floors and the collections in both of Tulane’s library buildings are fine and functional, as mold was miraculously kept away from them.

In February of 2008, Library Associates Companies (LAC) started a multi-year project to bring these restored materials back into Tulane’s general collection. LAC came to understand that in the wake of the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, the Tulane libraries had approximately 190,000 items that had been physically restored and required integration back into Tulane’s collection. LAC decided the best approach was to divide the work into two teams, headed by a single Project Manager, with one led by a librarian to work with the cataloged material and the other led by a librarian/archivist to primarily handle the archival materials:

LAC Project Manager for the Tulane University Recovery Project: Del Hamilton

Del Oehms Hamilton joined Library Associates in January, 2008 as an On Site Project Manager. She will be overseeing Tulane University’s Library Recovery Center and coordinating a three phased recovery project to facilitate dealing with the effects Hurricane Katrina had on the collections and materials.

Del has 23 years of library experience on all levels with over 20 of those in the academic setting. She most recently served as Library Systems Coordinator for Slippery Rock University. At SRU she also served as library Department Chairperson for 13 years and as an Instructional Materials Center Librarian first at Central Michigan University before joining the faculty at Slippery Rock in 1990. She has extensive experience in coordinating projects and operations of all sizes. She has participated in statewide initiatives with the Keystone Library Consortium since its beginning. In addition, at Central Michigan University she served as a professor for the Library Science program and taught courses on Cataloging, Children’s Literature, and Young Adult Literature.

She received her BS in Library Science and Education from Mississippi University for Women and her MLS from University of Southern Mississippi. Professionally Del is a past president of the Endeavor Users Group and served as an elected member of the Executive Board for 7 years. She was very active in the Enhancement Committee for that organization which she chaired for many years. Most recently she served as Chairperson of the Voyager Product Group during its formation under the Ex Libris Users of North America organization. She served on the Keystone Library Network Council and chaired several statewide projects. She is a member of the American Library Association, LITA, and ACRL and has served those organizations in various capacities.