Need advice

[myteaquinn]

Spring Sucks:

   Thursday I went into the basement to get a wrench to take the dead battery out of my truck and buy a new on. Boy what a surprise there was about an inch of water over most of my basement floor. Well I forgot about the truck and bought a replacement sump pump for the twenty something year old one. With work I only was able to start the major salvage effort today. Lucky that most of our stuff was in plastic bins but there were some things left on the floor that suffered.
   As I bent under my work bench to check for problems I saw the box that held the new baby bottle sterilizer that we purchased so so long ago.  And I got an immediate lump in my throat and tears welled up in my eyes as I had a flash back to a happier time. Yes I knew what that box signified to me and how dear it was to me. Even before I read the label that listed all of the contents I remembered what was in there.  Yes copies of my old radio club journals, to be specific:

DX Reporter: 6/82 to 9/87
ACE: 2/85 to 11/86; 1/87 to 9/87
Frendx: 1/87 to 9/87
Speedx; 1/87 to 9/87
NNRC: 11/79 to 9/87 

   What a terrible loss. Now for the reason for the post; should I try and dry them out, is it worth the effort? To be honest an hour ago I wanted to chuck them all but now I’m leaning to trying to dry them out. Let me know what you think. One last thing I don’t have a sewer so it is contaminated by regular old fashioned skanky ground water.
   As I carried my drowned memories up the basement stairs I passed the box that held the baby basinet that my wife wanted me to put back into storage as our grandson being a year old is too big to use any more. And yes she placed it on the high point of the basement floor, it sat there high and dry. Imagine that something that could be easily replaced safe and my memories slowly dying in my arms. What was she thinking?
   Well off to buy another floor fan and de-humidifier.

[ByteBORG]

Dry them out and carefully scan them.  

Use latex gloves, if dirty... phooey...

[ff]

I feel your pain myteaquinn.  My cellar has also had water issues off and on for decades.  I lost my entire ACE collection (the ENTIRE catalogue!) and all of my Andy Yoder's Hobby Broadcasting magazines about 10 years ago... the same way as you.  Mine were so far gone as to be in tatters - not just wet.  I guess only you can work out the mental calculus as to whether or not they are worth it to dry out.  Most of the ACE collection is available online thanks to Vince Havrilko and others.  I'm guessing that by now the other pubs you mentioned have been archived somewhere too.  In closing I'll add that - believe it or not - I've hardly thought about mine since maybe a couple months after it happened.  I guess most of the pain comes from the shock rather than from the actual loss.  I mean, they WERE relegated to the cellar, right?  R.I.P...

[jFarley]

mtq:

Same happened here in 1996 when my town got 15" of rain in 24 hrs.  Basement flooded with essentially groundwater.  I lost a lot: ACE, NASWA, DSWCI, cassettes, some QSLs...

My advice is to set priorities, because what isn't moldy now may be moldy in a short time.  I remember having to set priorities concerning what could be saved, and what wasn't worth the effort.  I decided that I would try to save those things which couldn't be replaced.  In the area of DX that meant a bunch of QSLs and my collection of Chicago Area DX Club bulletins, at least the ones from the time when I was the editor and publisher.  TBH, I never felt a loss after being ruthless in the cleanup; there is always new junk waiting to be collected.

I think ff said it best:  "I guess most of the pain comes from the shock rather than from the actual loss."

Best of luck in a speedy recovery.

[skeezix]

If simply wet and not otherwise damaged, try to save 'em. If the ink runs, its unfortunately a loss.

I used to have a whole bunch of Monitoring Times & Popular Communications from 1988 to mid 90's, also a bunch of computer mags from the early 80's. However, not lost to water, fire, disaster, plague, riots, insurrection, or war... but Mom.     She was cleaning.  Oh well... she gave me life, can't be upset, but I did take precautions after that.