Appalshop had been preserving mountain history for more than 50 years and I wondered if in a matter of hours a single flood had washed it all away.Ībout a half hour later we ran into Smith and Barret, again, and they put some of that fear to rest.
"All the film that was shot, all the recordings, still photographs that tell the true story of life, without it, it’s a big loss."Īs we said farewell to the couple and rounded the corner toward the sidewalk, my eyes darted toward a strange tangle of black ribbons that had clung to a telephone pole and wound its way down the street.Īnd sure enough, hundreds of feet of film had uncoiled from spools and were caught among fragments of photographs, newspapers and documents. "In some ways, the long-term understanding of how this region's history unfolded is in that archive," Smith said. Much of the archive is stored in a climate-controlled vault, and they were hopeful it had survived. Elizabeth Barret, one of the archivists, and her husband Herby Smith greeted us in the parking lot and told us they still hadn't been able to get in the door to check on the damage.
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