Recovering Flood-Damaged
Photos, Negatives, Film & Video

Keep wet until you can process them; don't let them dry out mid-cleaning. Rinse gently in cool, clean (distilled if possible) water to remove mud/silt. Never scrub or wipe the image surface. Air dry face-up on an absorbent, clean surface (blotting paper, unprinted newsprint, paper towels, clean cloth), spaced apart so they don't touch or flap onto each other. If photos must wait, freeze them between sheets of wax paper or non-woven polyester, in a sealed bag, in a personal or commercial freezer.

There are exceptions to every rule:

• Some antique/historic processes (ambrotypes, tintypes, wet-plate collodion negatives) are extremely water-sensitive and should never be frozen — NARA specifically warns against freezing old photographs/negatives of unknown or historic process. If you can't identify the process, treat it as high-risk and call a conservator before doing anything.
• Don't force framed photos out of the frame while wet. Mist/rinse the frame and photo together to help them separate. If the photo is stuck to the glass, dry it intact, glass-side down.

Just like prints, handle these by the edges only, air dry face-up, and keep them separated. Plastic-based modern negatives are generally more water-stable than paper prints. When you're triaging by priority, prints often need attention first. An important exception is deteriorated nitrate or 'vinegar syndrome' safety film, which is highly vulnerable. Glass-plate negatives are their own fragile category and should be handled by the edges over a padded surface and consult NARA's glass-plate-specific guidance if you have them.

There is less official guidance for this category. So these are takeaways from film-handling community. Verify with your lab before proceeding.

Unexposed film that gets wet risks losing its anti-halation backing and sensitizing dyes, and can stick to itself. If the film is in a camera, remove the battery, then rewind and remove the film canister in low light or a changing bag. Opening the camera back in daylight would expose the roll regardless of water damage. Take a wet, unprocessed roll to a lab promptly rather than opening or drying it yourself. Processing is really the only way to know what, if anything, survived.

Do not attempt to play back a water-damaged tape, even once it looks and feels dry. A tape that was wet is now structurally weaker and more prone to stretching or tearing, and a bad playback attempt can destroy it. The safest path is a professional or archival transfer service, which can slowly, manually retension the tape pack and inspect it before ever running it through a playback head. If you check a tape yourself, slow, gentle, hand-cranked winding (not a high-speed motorized rewind or fast-forward) is the lower-risk way to confirm nothing is stuck.

• Rinsing in distilled water if contaminated water is suspected.
• Dry a tape by standing it on edge. Use airflow or a fan to assist in drying, but do not use heat.
• Vacuum freeze-drying is an option for larger or valuable collections.

There is a genuinely different approach to handling motion picture film. It is actually the opposite of photos.

Do not try to dry film yourself, and do not let it dry out. If a wet reel of film dries in air, the emulsion of the film layers can fuse to one another, known as blocking. Blocking makes film essentially unrepairable without highly specialized, expensive conservation treatment.

It is recommended to keep motion picture film wet. Store reels submerged in clean water in a sealed container until they can get to a lab. Watch for warning signs that indicate urgency:

• The film turning purplish/blue (early, this sign is not alarming on its own)
• It becomes slippery, indicating that bacterial or mold activity is beginning.
• There are visible "threads" developing. This means the emulsion is detaching and preservation is now urgent.
• A gray, soup-like texture indicates advanced decomposition. In this state, only individual frames may be salvageable as stills.

Shipping wet film to a lab requires double-bagging for the submerged film. Place in a leak-proof hard container, such as a cooler. Pack the container tightly with padding, and seal with tape. Try to ship the container overnight. Make sure to label everything with a waterproof method, and keep a separate paper or photographed inventory. Motion picture film is typically handled by a specialized lab or the manufacturer/processor for rewashing and drying.