US Czech and Slovak Museum back in operation after floods

One month after falling victim to the worst floods in the Midwest’s recent history, the Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is getting back on its feet. The museum building may be out of action after flood waters reached the roof of the structure, but it’s business as usual for the museum staff, who are holding their first event since the floods this Thursday night. I asked museum manager Gail Naughton for an update:

“Well, the main building where our exhibits are housed has been cleaned out and disinfected. But right now, it’s an empty shell, if you will. All of the wall-board had to be removed from the walls and the insulation taken out. So we have an empty building. It’s like starting over.”

Can you estimate how bad the damage has been?

“The damage to our museum building and exhibits runs into millions of dollars. We don’t have a final estimate yet, but it is large.”

And do you have any idea how long it will take for the museum and library to return to its former glory?

“Well, I think it will take a couple of years. What we plan to do is have some interim operations, where we can have exhibits up next year, and have an operation and a museum store. But it will probably not be in our main building. Because it is going to take time to raise these millions of dollars to rebuild that main building and restore our full national museum again.”

Since the deluge happened, there has been a lot of public interest and there has been a big public reaction, can you tell me a bit about that?

“We’ve had calls and emails and contacts from all over the world. There has been a lot of interest from the Czech Republic, and from Slovakia, and all over the United States. Donations are coming in, and they are enabling us to operate and maintain our staff, so that we can actually make plans for the future. But we will have to do a lot more fundraising here over the next couple of years.”

Despite not having a building at the moment, you are still pressing ahead with some of your projects, can you tell me what you have got planned for Thursday evening, for example?

“Well this year in March we opened an exhibit called ‘1968’ – and it was about the Prague Spring and the Warsaw-pact Invasion. And in association with that exhibit, we planned a programme to do with major events in the sixties. And this week, we are going ahead with the programme on the space race of the sixties. So on Thursday, we have a speaker, and on Saturday, we have an event for families and children, where they are going to be making rockets and model airplanes and talking and learning about the space race.”