Natural Disasters And Collectors

You might have heard something about the town I live in lately.  The Red River of the North is exceeding its banks, and has reached a level never before seen in recorded history.  It’s not that we haven’t flooded before; the big news about my first birthday was that a truck had to ferry relatives from the road to my party due to the high waters, around three miles from the river, and 1997 really put Red River flooding into the nation’s consciousness.    Fargo’s current mayor was elected heavily on the fact that he was the city planner behind flood preparations in 1997; the history and preparations and leadership have been stretched to their limits this year, as the river has reached a historic 40.8 feet deep.  That’s up from its usual 17-feet deep level, and even above the 40.1 record set in 1897.

Red River Flood, 1897

That 1897  picture to the right is from my collection, printed in a 1947 copy of the Clay County Sunday press on the 50th anniversary of the disaster.   That newspaper now sits in my office, on the first floor of a century-old two-story house, about a mile and a half from the river.   My house’s age shows our position in relation to the river; the older parts of Fargo tend to be above flood-level, because the homes that hadn’t been high enough and were flooded got torn down or relocated after previous floods and through Urban Renewal.  Still, if the levees were breached, and flood waters began to run up through the streets, the city’s flood map gets precariously close to our house.   We have been presented with that old conundrum:  if you had to leave the house quickly, what is the one thing you’d bring with?

Most people wouldn’t be surprised that we took something practical — our computers — during our voluntary evacuation, because our livelihoods revolve around them, but as collectors I was struck initially that, if the worst-case scenario happened, removing a collection of any significant size would be nearly impossible.   My old coworker who collected rare carnival glass lived in a huge house right next to the river, in an area that has experienced mandatory evacuation: what could she have possibly done?  Our collection is largely paper and books — we’d need a large U-Haul and a few days to pack and move it, but moving safely and with intent to preserve is difficult to do quickly without risking damage to a collection.  What can be done?

First, a collector needs to realize what is important:  a collection, regardless of the value, is not worth the health and safety of yourself or the people around you.   Do not risk yourself or the safety of others, realizing that to head into danger to retrieve a valuable painting may put at risk the first responders dispached to rescue you.    A business-owner I once new broke away through a fire department line to dash into a partly-burning building to get his business’ server — a stupid move, considering two policemen had to run in after him to pull him out; happily, everything turned out OK, but the business-owner did get cited for taking such a heady risk.   If your collection isn’t a three-ring binder of meticulously-stored matchbook covers or a book-sized folder of statehood quarters, you need to be prepared that your collection may have to stay in the path of danger.

Second, er: be prepared that your collection may have to stay in the path of danger.  My coworker with the carnival glass displayed their collection on custom shelves built around their half-basement with the walk-out patio doors that led to their river-view back yard.  My guess is, at the highest shelf, those bowls and vases weren’t more than 15 feet above the river at its lowest; now that the river is nearly 25 feet above its usual banks, a dike failure would definitely fill that basement with silt, bacteria, and maybe a few carp.  Not a good place for valuable collectibles to live, unless you’re prepared to carefully pack and move each piece to higher ground, which might not always be possible.  Be aware of what risks your collection may be subject to, and store it appropriately.  Every collector wants to show off their collection, so wrapping everything in bubble-wrap and putting it in a waterproof plastic case at the bottom of a fireproof safe may not be acceptable to collectors – and it still might not be enough to protect against catastrophe.  Part of the process isn’t just spending money on disaster-resistant storage; you need to develop practices and processes to make sure things remain safe.   Leaving the fire-resistant cabinet open a crack because it’s too hard to find the key or do the combination will only defeat the cabinet’s purpose.  If you have a temporary place above flood-level for storage, don’t put the kid’s bikes there in the fall.   You can’t protect against everything, but be prepared — and don’t defeat your own preparations with carelessness.

Third:  the disaster that befalls you may not be the obvious one.  The biggest disaster that can befall a collector is a poor insurance decision. I acknowledge I’m underinsured for what I own, and I once held an insurance agent license.   Flood insurance most likely would not cover my collection if the city sewer backed up, or if my sump-pump overheated and started a fire, or if some opportunistic cad decided to break in and steal something.  I can’t trust my renter’s insurance would pay for everything, either:   I believe it has a flood-exclusion — because flood insurance should cover that — and from what I know of insurance I bet there are gaps between the two I haven’t thought of.   Even still, your average renter’s insurance or flood insurance may not be equipped to properly appraise or replace your collectibles; a book is a book is a book, and you get $2 for it whether it’s a Stephen King 29th printing paperback of Salem’s Lot or a first-edition Great Gatsby.  Were you to demand an apprised item’s value, you’re fighting an uphill battle to convince the insuror to cover something, which is more work than it needs to be.  If your renter’s insurance is an upsell add-on to your car insurance, you cannot expect a lot when it comes to the scope of what is covered.

Collectible insurance — it goes by many names, but an agent can point you in the right direction — is a necessity if your collection is worth more than a few thousand dollars.   This specifically covers your collection against losses, and those losses are often more broad than a usual personal-property insurance.  In some cases, if you accidentally drop and break it, you’re covered, too.   One big impedance, and probably the reason that you haven’t got it yet, is that the insurance company needs an accurate and reliable catalog of your collection’s items and their value.   This is a lot of work for an average collector, but it is very necessary if you want to be covered; an insuror cannot expect to pay an accurate price if they cannot clearly identify what the loss was.  From an emotional standpoint, it also makes you stop and think hard about what would happen if your collection suddenly disappeared, and that’s a mindset few collectors enjoy.   When the worst happens, however, the collector who is certain their investment is safe is a much happier collector than an unprepared one.

Because natural disasters strike quickly, and the most important things are a family’s safety and security, collection disaster preparations need to be handled well before the disaster is on the horizon.  You might not think you’re at risk for a flood or tornado, but many other occurances, like a fire or theft, could strike anywhere.   You owe it to your collection, your work and investment, to ensure that when the worst presents itself, you’re ready and protected against a total loss.