"On June 23, 1972, The Corning Museum of Glass was flooded to a level of five feet, four inches above the floor, possibly the greatest single catastrophe borne by an American museum. The Agnes Flood broke hundreds of objects, saturated over half the Library (and all the rare books), ruined equipment, and covered galleries, cases, offices, furniture, and files with a thick layer of slime. Thirty-nine days later, on August first, the Museum was reopened to the public, and four years later, in June of 1976, the Museum completed the task of restoring the glass collection and the Library. This book describes the restoration process and offers suggestions for disaster planning gleaned from experience."
Excerpted from the Preface of The Corning Flood: Museum Under Water
The Preface was written by Thomas Buechner,
former Director of The Corning Museum of Glass
Access a digitized PDF of The Corning Flood: Museum Under Water.
There have been two exhibitions at The Corning Museum of Glass commemorating the flood and the subsequent recovery:
Museum Under Water | June 2, 2002 to September 2, 2002
This exhibition, installed on the 30th anniversary of the Hurricane Agnes flood, showed some of the miraculous survivors of this catastrophe. They included a lampworked fox-hunting scene composed of small figures in a wood and glass frame, a candelabrum that was on display in the English Gallery, a Roman jug that was broken into 124 fragments, and a copy of Antonio Neri's The Art of Glass once owned by King Charles II of England.
The Flood of ’72: Community, Collections, and Conservation | May 24, 2012 to January 3, 2014
This exhibition commemorating the 40th anniversary of the flood detailed the damage caused by the floodwaters, as well as the spirit of the community and Museum staff that drove them to rebuild. Photographs, documents, and other selected historical materials from the Library’s collection highlighted the flood, its aftermath, subsequent reconstruction, and the development of new disaster preparedness programs and conservation techniques.