What To Do About Flood-damaged Audiotape or CDs

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Updated October 2014

The Restoration Center @ Airshow received inquiries about media damaged in the September 2013 flooding in Colorado. While we do transfer analog to digital media and we do provide sonic restoration, we do not provide media recovery service.

Media recovery involves cleaning off and drying magnetic or optical media, with the goal to preserve the content until it can be safely transferred. Getting started early after a damaging event is better than waiting since mold accumulation from the water damage may be more challenging than water damage itself. And if your media storage is damaged, then it’s a safe assumption that anything containing or surrounding it was damaged as well. ServiceMaster Restoration by Zaba or similar services can help restore water, fire or any mold damage. House floods and fires can be extremely inconvenient and can ruin a lot of your possessions. Whilst some personal objects can never be replaced, other items could be replaced financially if you pay for home insurance. When a flood or fire hits a house, it can ruin possessions inside the home, whilst also damaging the structure of the property. Bringing in people who specialize in water damage repair in denver or elsewhere at this stage can help save what is left. Also, some of the after-effects of water damage could lead to rotting wood or termite infestations in your home. This could become a large problem and therefore contacting a pest control service nearby like those on this link https://www.pestcontrolexperts.com/termite-control/, may help you to sort out any termite or bug problems after incurring flood damage. Hopefully, homeowners will have home insurance as this can help people financially recover from these events. If you don’t already have home insurance, it’s probably worth getting some before this sort of event happens in your home. To find the best house insurance company, it might be worth clicking here to visit the Money Expert website. When homeowners pay this insurance, they can claim money from their insurance company if their home ever floods or if items are ruined in a fire. Some items will be able to be restored, but some, unfortunately, won’t.

We checked with our colleagues at Lyrasis, the national academic library consortium with an active archive services group, to give our clients the best possible direction.

Get Information

Here are documents from the web that we found particularly helpful.

Helpful Highlights:

Short-term exposure to water does not destroy most magnetic tapes.
Most tapes recovered from floods can be restored if treated promptly.
Water, alone, cannot damage the magnetic recording on ferric oxide tapes.
Most contamination is on the edges or outer reels of tape; don’t unwind.

Get Professional Help

  1. Specs Bros specializes in recovery of audio and videotape: 800-852-7732, admin@specsbros.com. Only you can assess the value of your media against the cost to recover it. Specs staff will give you fair guidance on the costs involved, and what steps you might take yourself.
  2. Lyrasis referred us to BMS CAT, based in Ft Worth TX. Heather Shimala (817.810.5635 or hshimala@bmscat.com) is available to answer questions and help you reach decisions about your media. Costs range based on their classification of tape from Level 1 (clear water only) to Level 4 (biohazard, sewage, other contaminated water exposure). They also recover LTO tape, and may be the only commercial company to handle this digital tape back-up medium.
  3. Lyrasis referred us to Polygon Group (https://www.polygongroup.com), based in N. Andover, MA. Joe Perko (917.573.6379 or joe.perko@polygongroup.com) is available to discuss your media.
  4. Lyrasis also refers its clients to Belfor, the national disaster recovery company. They have a Denver office: 303.425.9700

In a few months, when your precious tapes are clean and dry, please allow us to transfer them to digital media for safekeeping.