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Officially, Oct. 13, 2012 is the International Day for Disaster Reduction. We at Polygon would like to commemorate this worldwide date of disaster awareness by outlining how business leaders can do their part to reduce disaster risk.

On Nov. 7, 1898, the New York Times reported that an enormous explosion had rocked the Capitol Building. A subterranean room exploded after a gas line had been left open. The damage was extensive. Even on upper stories, windows were blown out. Doors were knocked off their hinges. And water, smoke and fire damaged countless historical documents. One badly hit area: the library of the Supreme Court, where about 20,000 legal volumes were housed. Moreover, the records of the Supreme Court from 1792 to 1832 were rendered completely useless. As the Times reported, “The loss on the library and the records can scarcely be estimated in dollars and cents. A million dollars could not replace them, because many of them have no duplicates in existence.”

The University of Wisconsin-Superior was a mess last June. After 8 inches of rainfall in a 24-hour period, the city’s storm water system was inundated and therefore unable to prevent water from rushing into basements all over town. The university’s basement was flooded with almost 9 feet of water! Librarians at UWS were horrified to find more than 133,000 flood damaged books. The following is a look at how libraries can avoid this dreadful situation, as well as how damaged books may be restored.

Imagine 25,000 gallons of water flooding through 13 stories of residential and commercial property. Last January, this terrible situation befell Huntington Towers, a mixed-use building in Champaign, Ill. The deluge of water was released when frozen pipes burst on the building’s 13th floor. The pipes were exposed to extremely cold temperatures when an access door blew open during a nasty storm. Fortunately, the building’s tenants were able to return within three days of the emergency, thanks to the efforts of a firm specializing in disaster recovery.

As document restoration specialists, we can tell you that preparation makes all the difference in the world when it comes to surviving natural disasters. Businesses and organizations that take the time to prepare for and protect themselves against risk are far more likely to survive a natural calamity.