G. Wayne Clough in the Smithsonian Castle last January.
How’s Frederick Waugh‘s “Southwesterly Gale, St. Ives” doing?
Few museum professionals are as qualified as Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough to evaluate today’s East Coast earthquake, which CultureGrrl rode out in a Manhattan doctor’s office. (My friend, the patient, was having a rocky ride for other reasons.)
Unlike others elsewhere in the same medical building, I felt nothing at all. But I did hear about the quake within minutes of its occurrence from others in the waiting room, who were on their smartphones. I placed several worried calls (getting through on the third try) to CultureDaughter, who now lives near D.C. and felt the quake strongly (but is fine).
Enough about me.
Clough, an earthquake engineer, described to MSNBC‘s Martin Bashir the scene in the Smithsonian’s 1857 Castle, its oldest building and administrative headquarters, where a lot of plaster fell on his desk and “most people decided to get under the table, which was absolutely the right response. I tried to sit and feel the motions carefully, because I can tell a good bit about an earthquake from the motion….You actually had the passing of two waves—the compression wave and the shear wave [my link, not his]….There were little plaster particles falling, there was dust in the air and we have some cracking in some of the windows.”
The Washington Post‘s Jacqueline Trescott reported about the situation at other D.C. museums, as well as at the Smithsonian. She noted that “the National Gallery of Art reported minor plaster and paint had fallen
in corners of the West Building, but an early assessment didn’t show any
damage to any art.” The Association of Art Museum Directors tweeted that several D.C. and Virginia museums that it had heard about are “a-ok.”
My guess is that a full assessment of the integrity of buildings and the condition of their contents (including art) is still a work-in-progress.
For now, here’s Bashir’s full conversation with Clough. (Note to Martin: It’s Smithsonian Institution, not “Institute.”)