When flood damage hits you, you don't mourn over your high-end furniture or your flat screen TV. Rather, you worry about your kids' growing up photographs, your book collection, your social documents and other memorabilia in paper. At first sight, it could really be disappointing to face piles of muddy photos and wet books. With the right document drying process however, saving your memorabilia can be possible.



Your books can be easily cleaned and air-dried. The first step for the document drying procedure is to remove the books from the remaining flood water. If the books are soaked in dirty floor water, rinse them with clean water in a sink or bucket. Let them dry up - indoors. The heat of the sun and the wind can cause your book pages to curl up. For books which have been water-logged, place paper towels in between the wet pages and lay the books flat to dry. Inserting blotting paper in a 30-page interval will be a big help as well.

For your important documents like diploma, marriage certificates and the like, lay the papers on a flat surface but keep out of direct sunlight. Rinse by gently spraying water. These documents can be very fragile so you have to be extra careful in your document drying procedure. If the documents are soggy, you need to lay them in piles. Allow the paper to dry a bit then that's the time you start separating them page by page. Another trick is to use a stringing fishing line for hanging your paper documents like a clothes line. Use an electric fan inside the room to speed up the document drying process.

Books and papers suffer from a musty smell even when after completing the whole document drying process. To resolve this problem, simply place the books and papers in a properly ventilated and securely dry place for a couple of days. If the musty smell persists, put the books in an open box and place inside a larger open container together with an open box of baking soda. Baking soda absorbs odors quickly. Check the box regularly for signs of mold contamination.

For your photographs, make sure that you salvage them from the remaining flood water and perform a document drying procedure in no longer than two days. Keeping them soaked in water for a longer period of time not only causes mold accumulation. It also causes pictures to stick together. Damaged photos in picture frames need to be saved even sooner. Otherwise the photo surface can stick tightly to the glass making it even more difficult to restore. To remove a photograph from a picture frame, keep the glass and the photo together then rinse with flowing water. The stream of water will gently separate the photo from the glass.

Historical photographs are very sensitive to water and recovering them can be impossible. As a "first aid" practice, dry them up. Immediately consider hiring the services of a professional photo restorer afterwards. Don't store your old photographs inside your freezer without consulting with a professional conservator first.

Your photographs and your book collection tell so much about the life that you had. Don't lose these memories to the havoc of flood damage. With the five simple document drying tips above, you sure can beat the nightmares of flood damage.