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A story of how a typical business trip turned into a tale of disaster management of national importance…

(Editor’s Note: Originally written in August for her personal blog, Barbara Campagna has agreed to share the story of her experience at the Farnsworth House in Plano, IL, as the floodwaters from the Fox River approached.)

Saturday, August 25th, 2007

Saturday morning found us back at Farnsworth House with no further rains the night before. We took the boat out again and checked the house, emptied out the melting ice in the freezer, took more photos and then motored around the site to see how the trees and landscape had fared. There were many trees and branches floating in the water, fish swimming where only bushes and flowers should be and the pedestrian bridge from the Visitor Center was completely submerged. Still, we sighed happily that no water had breached the doors into the house. Whitney and I finished our day by writing down all we could think of that would be important for future disasters. And I drove back to Midway, happy to be going home and happier still that our precious resource had been saved - at least this time!!

Barbara A. Campagna, FAIA, LEED AP BD+C was formerly the Graham Gund Architect of the National Trust in the Stewardship of Historic Sites office. She is currently a sustainability consultant to the National Trust and can be reached at bcampagna@bcampagna.com.

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Sad news from the field, today.

Mildred Bennett died peacefully at her home in Holy Cross early Sunday morning. Mrs. Bennett’s house was one of the first targets of the HOME AGAIN! New Orleans program, offering technical and financial assistance to owners of houses in flooded historic neighborhoods. Donna Duplantier expressed gratitude that her grandmother was able to return to her house, built in 1884, on Dauphine Street. Mrs. Bennett had moved back into her house on October 3. She was 90 years old.

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A story of how a typical business trip turned into a tale of disaster management of national importance…

(Editor’s Note: Originally written in August for her personal blog, Barbara Campagna has agreed to share the story of her experience at the Farnsworth House in Plano, IL, as the floodwaters from the Fox River approached.)

August 24th, 2007

Whitney and I had plans to drive out to Chicago for a 10:30 am meeting at the Landmarks Illinois office in the Monadnock Building with David Bahlman and Al Novickis, the architect ready to start work on the SAT grant for the house. I went down to a scrumptious breakfast to be told that Whitney had called at 7:30 am to say that the house had been completely surrounded by 4 feet of water during the night and I should get out there as soon as possible. I emailed my office and drove there to find that the Farnsworth House was peering above the water just barely, its 5 foot high stilts completely submerged and the water lapping at its front door. David Bahlman, President of Landmarks Illinois our co-steward partner at the house, drove down from Chicago, and he, Whitney and her boyfriend and I, tried to figure out how to get to the house to see if water had gotten in and/or to try to elevate the furniture and the rare Primavera wood panels.

We are fortunate that Whitney, the new site director who has only been in her job for 4 months, has lived in the community for 15 years and knows everyone. The water was too high and too dangerous to consider wading through. So we knew we needed to find a flat-bottomed boat. She called everyone she could think of including the Fire Department and no one had a boat. We feared we would be able to do nothing but watch as the house became submerged and possibly damaged as extensively as it had in 1996 when water rose 5' into the house.

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Barbara A. Campagna, FAIA, LEED AP BD+C was formerly the Graham Gund Architect of the National Trust in the Stewardship of Historic Sites office. She is currently a sustainability consultant to the National Trust and can be reached at bcampagna@bcampagna.com.

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The arts continue to find their inspiration in the New Orleans post-Katrina experience while providing inspiration and encouragement to long-suffering residents. This weekend a production of Samuel Becket’s “Waiting for Godot” was presented in the streets of the Lower 9th Ward. Next week it moves to the streets of Gentilly. The production is a New Orleans version of a June 2007 production in New York by the Classical Theatre of Harlem. (NPR produced an interesting audio piece about this production for Weekend Edition Saturday.)

Also this weekend, trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard appeared with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra to present “A Tale of God’s Will (a requiem for Katrina),” a series of pieces based on his and his band’s compositions for the soundtrack of Spike Lee’s documentary “When the Levees Broke.”

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Anyone who knows me is aware that I wouldn't trade my Capitol Hill neighborhood for a bigger piece of real estate out in the 'burbs, and a friend recently sent me a link to a website that illustrates one of the reasons I like where I live: I can get almost everything I need without ever getting into a car. Walkscore.com uses Google Maps to plot the amenities within walking distance of any address, and provides a numerical score.

It's no coincidence that my vibrant, historic neighborhood scores well -- with an award-winning Main Street program, I am lucky enough to live in a place where preservation has truly made an impact. My current apartment scores an 86 out of 100, and my former home, just one block from Barracks Row, scored a whopping 97. For purposes of comparison, I plugged in my brother's address in the DC suburbs, and it scored a 29. 29!

Historic and walkable -- that's the recipe for a great neighborhood. Sorry, bro.

Sarah Heffern is the social media strategist for the National Trust’s Public Affairs team. While she embraces all things online and pixel-centric, she’s also a hard-core building hugger, having fallen for preservation in a fifth grade “Built Environment” class.

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