HURRICANE HARVEY RECOVERY

In 2017 Hurricane Harvey dropped more than 4 feet of water in Houston and surrounding areas. Unfortunately the Alley Theatre's basement floors, including the Neuhaus Stage and all 11,000 square feet of prop storage flooded. After the water receded and it was safe to enter the building Karin led a team of 20+ staff and occasional labor in the inventory and recovery of the almost 84,000 hand props that had been damaged by the water.

Skip to the bottom of the page for a photo gallery.

ASSESSMENT OF DAMAGE

The first visit into properties stock following the flood occurred 3 days following the initial flooding event. We found 2-3" of water remaining on the floor, and all of the items seemingly decimated. Mold and rust had already started to set in on many items. While walking through stock that first time, we were already starting to formulate a plan to recover as much as possible.

Please see the photo gallery below for some before and after photos of stock.

INVENTORY OF ITEMS

10 days following the flood we finally had a plan in place and got to work photographing and inventorying every single item in storage. This inventory would serve 2 purposes. The first would be to ensure we could save every item possible, but more importantly, it would provide the raw data needed to complete a full valuation of prop inventory for the insurance claim.

We started with a team of 12 people working in teams to simultaneously photograph and make notes on every single item, and recover anything we thought to be salvageable. Salvaged items were moved from the stacks to a packing area where they were safely bundled up and transported to a clean warehouse a few miles away.

CLEANING & RECOVERY

Once all of the salvaged items were safely transported to the warehouse we were going to use to clean them, we got to work. At the height of cleaning we had 20 people working in an assembly line method to meticulously wash or launder every item.

All items were treated with isopropyl alcohol to stop mold growth. Upholstered pieces had their upholstery stripped off to allow frames to dry out. We utilized indirect air flow, shop vacs with HEPA filters, lots of cleaning supplies, and a huge dose of positivity and humor to keep things moving along.

CONTINUING WORK

At the same time we were working on cleaning and recovery of the Hurricane Harvey items we also had productions moving forward and props to build. Our regular shop space was unavailable to us, as it was located on the 14th and 15th floors of the downtown location that had flooded where there was no power or other utilities. So we built a small workspace in the front portion of our furniture warehouse which had thankfully been spared any flooding in the storm.

We worked in this space for several months building props and furniture. To accommodate both tasks (cleaning and building) we divided the crew up with half of the crew working on build, while the other half cleaned. I've never been more grateful to have a supportive, can do anything team.

MOVING INVENTORY BACK IN

Once everything was cleaned and mold/rust free, it was packed into boxes and moved from the warehouse used for cleaning to the prop furniture warehouse where it would sit for another 10 months.

During that 10 month period, contractors were busty restoring the onsite areas which included rerunning utility lines for the entire high rise above the storage area, and we were busy locating new and affordable shelving. Once we were given an occupancy permit to start moving back in we were ready.

Photo below shows all of the salvaged items cleaned and ready to move.

INSURANCE VALUATION

By far the longest portion of the recovery process was the creation of the valuation for insurance and FEMA. After seeing the scope of the damage and developing an understanding of the unique nature of a large majority of the items lost, it was determined that I would be the subject matter expert who would do the final valuation for of each item.

This process took several months to do while I was simultaneously managing the prop shop through the build of several productions. The process began with entering into a spreadsheet the information gathered from our handwritten notes (including serial and model numbers), and then pairing that information to the thousands of photos that we took. The next step was to identify what show the item was from if possible, and then placing a replacement value on each item. The replacement value was either based on a similar item that was currently purchasable, or by using a formula to determine the cost to rebuild each item.

The final valuation spreadsheet which was accompanied by the indexed photos and screenshots of each item valued by current purchase price was so thorough that it was accepted without argument by the insurance company.