OUR VIEW LOGO (NEW)

We at the Rogue Valley Times let out a collective gasp when we learned about what can only be described as a “There but for the Grace of God” moment.

A Father’s Day weekend rainstorm that caused catastrophic water damage to the Southern Oregon Historical Society building in downtown Medford hit close to home.

The second floor of the former JCPenney building at the corner of Sixth and Central — which, according to SOHS Executive Director Ron Kramer, sustained the heaviest damage — housed the Times offices from our inception until the move to our new digs during the first week of June.

If we had moved a week later, we would have hit a tidal wave of trouble when the ceiling, walls and floor of the SOHS building were inundated during the storm.

“When I arrived Monday after the weekend storm,” Kramer said, “the roofers were doing a great job trying to mitigate the damage. They had a tarp down covering just about the whole floor up there. When they picked up the corners, we pretty much had a swimming pool.”

Our close call — and our close ties with SOHS — make us especially determined to see that the historical society gets the help it needs at this moment.

The damage came under the most unfortunate of circumstances. The weekend storms hit while the building’s roof was undergoing some long-needed repairs.

Kramer said a cover over a portion of the roof under repair was “not sufficiently airtight.” When the rains came, the water went through the exposed area and devastated much of the building.

The needed repairs are daunting in their scope.

Bathrooms on the first and second floors, multiple walls, most of the roof and ceiling and a portion of a wall in the collections storage area were complete losses. Exploratory demolition was done to see whether other areas might need repair.

Artifacts were moved from the SOHS lobby area to off-site storage areas. Staff members are working from home indefinitely.

As dehumidifiers dried out the impacted areas, the 35-year-old air conditioning for the building had to be turned off — a move that might cause another problem, because service personnel told Kramer that the AC unit might not be able to come back on.

The damage also put a halt to the historical society’s plans later this year to turn the main downstairs area into an event space, and transform the former Times offices into additional museum space for some of its more than 1 million artifacts.

Even if SOHS had not leased space to the Times as our own history began, the damage to the historic building would initiate a call for community action.

As the work unfolds, we encourage anyone with a stake in preserving Southern Oregon’s rich past to offer assistance. You can reach the Historical Society by phone at 541-622-2025, or by email through the form at sohs.org/contact-us.

Information about offering financial assistance can be found at sohs.org/donate.