Disaster Response: The 1980 Economics Building Fire
A Christmas Eve, 1980 fire ravaged the historic Economics Building, destroying or damaging many valuable books and manuscripts. Built in 1856 as the Chemical Laboratory, it had been home to the Economics Department since 1909. The department's Leo Scharfman Library was a total loss. Many fire and water damaged books and documents were freeze dried in University Food Service trucks and the vacuum chamber at the UM Aerospace Building. A UM employee, who had been fired shortly before the blaze, was later charged with arson.
Contract salvage workers sorting and packing materials. Economics professors were on hand to identify their material.
Materials packed in milk crates, labeled and ready for freeze-drying - wet/frozen, dirty, crumpled and smelly.
They come out dry, crumpled and smelly.
Vacuum chambers at UM Aerospace Engineering. The facility had been identified by Ann Flowers as a potential resource in preparing the Disaster Plan for the Bentley Library. This chamber was used in a test of freeze-drying water damaged materials - a fairly new idea at the time.
The Bendix Chamber on North Campus, designed originally for testing the Moon Rover, was the largest vacuum chamber used for freeze-drying Economics Building materials. Some material was also sent to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for freeze-drying.