“ServiceMaster All Care Restoration Launches Website with New Design - PR Web” plus 2 more

“ServiceMaster All Care Restoration Launches Website with New Design - PR Web” plus 2 more


ServiceMaster All Care Restoration Launches Website with New Design - PR Web

Posted: 26 Feb 2021 02:04 PM PST

ServiceMaster All Care Restoration has been a leading provider of disaster restoration and cleaning services for homes and businesses in Phoenix, AZ and the surrounding areas of Maricopa County as well as Pima, Cochise, and Santa Cruz counties in southern Arizona since 2005. They recently launched a new website with an improved design, easier navigation, and mobile friendly responsiveness for a better user experience. Their website was designed and built by Proceed Innovative, a web design and SEO service provider based in the Chicago, IL area.

The Need for a New Website Design

The previous website for ServiceMaster All Care Restoration was outdated with poor navigation and loading times and it did not display very well on mobile devices. The new design for their website is more visually appealing than the previous design with updated ServiceMaster branding, and it is much easier to navigate. The dropdown menus allow users to conveniently find their service pages and the main areas in which they service, and there is an option to request a free quote in the top navigation.

The main improvement in the new web design for ServiceMaster All Care Restoration is that it is mobile responsive. The mobile friendliness of a website is extremely important because more people search for products and services online with their mobile devices than on desktops or laptops. The new website for ServiceMaster All Care Restoration now loads quickly and displays properly on all mobile devices and mobile users can navigate it easily. Users can also call ServiceMaster All Care Restoration directly by using the call buttons for emergency disaster restoration services.

About ServiceMaster All Care Restoration

ServiceMaster All Care Restoration has been in business since 2005 serving the homes and businesses in Maricopa, Pima, Cochise, and Santa Cruz counties in Arizona with quality disaster restoration services. Their current owner, Jeff Jackson, started ServiceMaster All Care Restoration after working in the ServiceMaster Home Office as the Director of Disaster Restoration for 12 years. The technicians of ServiceMaster All Care Restoration are IICRC certified and equipped to respond to water damage, fires, mold growth, and other disasters that have resulted in property damage. They have won several awards due to their outstanding service including the Farmers Insurance Vendor of the Year and MetLife Vendor of the Year awards.

To learn more, visit servicemasterallcare.com or call (623) 486-0700.

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'A stab in the heart': Storm damage at Fair Park's Hall of State put rare artifacts in peril - The Dallas Morning News

Posted: 26 Feb 2021 09:51 AM PST

On a recent frigid morning, some of the rarest documents in Texas were hit with the terror of a home invasion — by the weather.

They were held hostage for hours, and the future of some remains in peril. They range from a Bible owned by John Neely Bryan, the founder of the city of Dallas, to the Juneteenth proclamation that freed enslaved people in Texas, to a leather pipe bag owned by Comanche leader Quanah Parker.

A Super Bowl football owned by Dallas Cowboys coaching legend Tom Landry stood out among the more sentimental items endangered by the storm, which exacted an emotional toll on those working to save a suddenly imperiled inventory.

For the scores of workers staging the elaborate rescue, the aftereffects linger. For one of them, the crisis began with a peaceful sleep interrupted by a phone call he'll never forget.

Gerado Viquerias of Phoenix 1 Restoration scrapes loose paint from the Hall of Heroes art deco ceiling where water damaged the Hall of State building at Fair Park in Dallas.
Gerado Viquerias of Phoenix 1 Restoration scrapes loose paint from the Hall of Heroes art deco ceiling where water damaged the Hall of State building at Fair Park in Dallas.(Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

The call came at 4 a.m. Feb. 17, three days after Valentine's Day, when Toby Hazelip and his colleagues were still feeling giddy about the $14.41 million restoration of the 84-year-old Hall of State finished only two months earlier.

But now, Hazelip would become the trigger man in a whole new restoration. Within minutes, he would be at the forefront of what felt like a war zone, with teams of workers and document preservation specialists battling gushing water, bone-chilling cold and potentially lethal electricity.

Toby Hazelip, exhibits and facilities manager, outside of the historic Hall of State building.
Toby Hazelip, exhibits and facilities manager, outside of the historic Hall of State building.(Ashley Landis / Staff Photographer)

Hazelip is exhibits and facilities manager for the Dallas Historical Society, whose collection numbers more than 3 million items. Not all are housed at the Hall of State in Fair Park, but that's where the middle-of-the-night crisis rapidly unfolded. (An estimated 50,000 items housed in a large warehouse in the Bishop Arts District were spared by the storm known as Uri.)

Uri granted no such mercy to the Hall of State, an architectural icon that commemorates Texas history. The hall opened in September 1936 as the centerpiece of the Texas Centennial.

"This isn't just any building," says Veletta Lill, who chairs the Dallas Historical Society and is also a board member of Fair Park First, which manages the 277-acre park that opened in the 1800s.

"The people who work on this building have an emotional investment in this building, whether you work in it or on it," she says. "This symbolizes Texas. It was built to symbolize Texas. And at the moment, we're in crisis. Texas is in crisis. So, we feel that pain."

Salvaged historical items are laid out to dry in the Great Hall in the Hall of State building at Fair Park in Dallas.
Salvaged historical items are laid out to dry in the Great Hall in the Hall of State building at Fair Park in Dallas.(Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

Devastating, yes, but more than a week later, Lill is sounding an optimistic note, believing the contents of the building can and will be saved.

Her optimism extends even to the worst casualties, in particular 18 Orotone photographs, taken by legendary photographer Polly Smith that celebrate the Depression-era history of Texas.

As strange as it sounds, it could have been worse, Lill says, were it not for the fast action by Hazelip and so many others who followed him through the hall's golden door.

Veletta Lill, who chairs the Dallas Historical Society and is also a board member of Fair Park First, said fast action saved many of the Hall of State's precious artifacts.
Veletta Lill, who chairs the Dallas Historical Society and is also a board member of Fair Park First, said fast action saved many of the Hall of State's precious artifacts.

Shaken from slumber, Hazelip walked to his wife's Ford Explorer and found the windshield already covered with a thick snow. The temperature had fallen to 20 degrees with a plummeting wind chill making it feel even colder.

"Toby arrived at the Hall of State around 4:30 a.m.," Lill says. "As soon as he got there, he found water gushing from the doors."

Hearing him tell the story, Lill felt the pain.

"If you were there the first day, and Toby arrived when it was a blizzard, and it was dark, and it was ice. It was," Lill says, "a stab in the heart. It was truly a stab in the heart."

All of that is true, abundantly so, Hazelip says. He calls it a highly emotional moment.

What transpired in the days since — repairing walls, floors, pipes, the HVAC system and more — is expected to cost at least $3 million at the Hall of State alone. That doesn't include damage to the collection or the nearby Cotton Bowl, where repair estimates now exceed $2 million.

So far, rescuers from multiple agencies and private companies have managed to salvage or restore hundreds of documents, one being the historical society's rarest, most significant item: the 1865 Juneteenth proclamation. It survived, Lill says, because it was locked in a safe. Others are being treated at a Fort Worth facility that specializes in restoring damaged documents.

Paper conservator Lyzanne Gann examines the Juneteenth proclamation from 1865 that noted the end of slavery in Texas. Because it was stored in a safe, it escaped damage from the February storm that affected other items in the vast collection of the Dallas Historical Society. The society considers the Juneteenth proclamation to be its most valuable artifact.
Paper conservator Lyzanne Gann examines the Juneteenth proclamation from 1865 that noted the end of slavery in Texas. Because it was stored in a safe, it escaped damage from the February storm that affected other items in the vast collection of the Dallas Historical Society. The society considers the Juneteenth proclamation to be its most valuable artifact.(Mark Birnbaum Productions)

The Dallas Office of Arts and Culture estimates it will cost $411,000 to repair its own damaged or threatened items, which are owned by the City of Dallas and housed in the Hall of State — murals, a fresco, the Orotone photographs, furniture and vitrines.

But the city's estimate does not include damage to the historical society archives, whose repair costs have not been determined.

All involved say even more items would have been damaged, or destroyed, absent the immediate, widespread response that unfolded soon after Hazelip answered his iPhone at 4 a.m.

By 10 a.m. on Feb. 17, a crew that Lill describes as "a battalion, an army of construction workers" had been deployed. According to Karl Chiao, executive director of the Dallas Historical Society, they worked tirelessly until 9 that night and under the worst possible conditions. Workers were forced to tread carefully, so as not to incur a fatal footstep, because of the mixture of water and power.

"Plus," Chiao says, "there was always the concern that the ceiling might collapse."

Chiao offers a grim assessment of what went wrong and why. Heaters designed to keep water pipes from freezing failed to come on. Why? Because rolling blackouts had temporarily taken away the power. "Then at some point," Chiao says, "the electricity returns, creating an even more dangerous situation. So, there we are, saying, ''Wait, now we have electricity and water spewing out.' "

A conservator examines a mural in the Hall of State at Fair Park to check for damage from the winter storm of February 2021.
A conservator examines a mural in the Hall of State at Fair Park to check for damage from the winter storm of February 2021.(Mark Birnbaum Productions)

Workers tried and succeeded, Chiao says, to remove 4 feet of water from the boiler room. But even then, the humidity in the building remained far above where it should have been. Instead of being around the ideal 30%, it was easily double that.

"The water in the rest of the building," Chiao says, "was pumped out by 9″ p.m. on Feb. 17. And then finally, the next day, the outside temperature reached a merciful 32 degrees.

Lynn Rushton, the public art collection and conservation manager for the Dallas Office of Arts and Culture, made a frantic call to document preservation firm TX-CERA.

"Think of them," Lill says, "as the Red Cross for the arts. They're conservators that respond in emergencies."

But that wasn't all. Spectra, which manages operations for Fair Park First, summoned the Michigan-based restoration company Belfor. It dispatched a crew, Lill says, that works with museums "in the case of waterlogged documents."

Belfor gathered hundreds of items — books and papers mostly — and drove them to Fort Worth, where they "were frozen and freeze-dried," Lill says, to remove moisture.

Those include a third of the Hall of State's collection of about 5,000 cartoons drawn by John Knott, an editorial cartoonist for The Dallas Morning News in the early 1900s. Knott drew Old Man Texas, which is found in the mural titled Commerce in the North Texas Room. Lill says that mural will be treated for "a minor intrusion of humidity."

The G.B. Dealey Library, named for a longtime publisher of The News, is in the West Texas Room, which did not sustain storm damage.

The storm created what Rushton describes, in the 72 hours after Hazelip arrived, as nothing less than "a triage system."

It felt, she says, "like being in Russia in the 1950s. It's dark, it's cold. There's water everywhere. People are moving around near electrical cords, and scrambling to get objects upstairs to safety."

Hazelip was not alone in having to weather a sea of emotions. When Rushton arrived at the building, in whose restoration so many had taken such enormous pride, "water was cascading down the front steps of the Hall of State. Those golden doors at the entrance had an iceberg of frozen water that moved all the way down."

And the bathrooms didn't work. The Spectra offices in the Tower Building would eventually offer working facilities, as did the African American Museum.

A pipe and tobacco bag of the legendary Comanche leader Quanah Parker was slightly damaged. It lays on a screen to dry after it took on water from a burst pipe. It may need more conservation.
A pipe and tobacco bag of the legendary Comanche leader Quanah Parker was slightly damaged. It lays on a screen to dry after it took on water from a burst pipe. It may need more conservation. (Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

Hazelip credits Phoenix 1, a Farmers Branch restoration and construction company, with a Herculean response that came soon after the arrival of Dallas Fire-Rescue.

"Phoenix 1 called in the cavalry for sure," Hazelip says.

Chiao credits Phoenix 1 with restoring power to the building by 7 p.m. that Wednesday and with "getting all the water out of the building. They brought generators and heaters and dehumidifiers that were part of our effort to triage the collection."

Soon, Rushton says, the humidity in the hall went down from a high of 70% to as low as 20%, which she calls "truly impressive."

Chiao also credits specially designed museum storage cabinets from Spacesaver Corp., which have rubber seals on the top and sides.

"Those cabinets," Lill says, "are the sole reason that a lot of things were not harmed."

Karl Chiao, the executive director of the Dallas Historical Society, tours the archive room where artifacts in rolling Spacesaver shelves went mostly untouched by the water flowing from above in the Hall of State building at Fair Park. Each shelving section has a rubber seal around it so when stacked together, water is repelled.
Karl Chiao, the executive director of the Dallas Historical Society, tours the archive room where artifacts in rolling Spacesaver shelves went mostly untouched by the water flowing from above in the Hall of State building at Fair Park. Each shelving section has a rubber seal around it so when stacked together, water is repelled. (Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

Brian Nicodemus, an architect with Gensler, whose firm oversaw the 2020 renovation, says the swell of emotions surrounding the crisis has not gone away. Winter storm Uri even dealt a cruel hand to a woman who'd hoped to be married in the Hall of State.

"Hours before what figured to be the most important day of her life," Nicodemus says, "we had to tell her that she would not be able to be married there."

And that was just one moment in what he called a siege of despair.

"When we left it eight weeks ago," Nicodemus says, "we felt like it was whole."

But "whole" soon gave way to broken.

When Chiao arrived at the building at 7 a.m. on Feb. 17, he found Hazelip standing with a plumber, appearing "ready to cry. He looked at me and said, 'This may be our worst-case scenario.' "

Hazelip calls that the first moment he let his guard down.

"It was the first time I wasn't dealing with the situation. It became, in that moment, more discussion than action, so it really started hitting me. And I thought, 'Man, this is really horrible.' "

He was, Chiao says, "visibly shaken. You're thinking, 'Oh, my gosh, where do we go from here? This just got done.' Toby spent the last 12 months of his life doing this. But then he looked at me and said, 'We built it once. We know how it's done. Let's go do it again.' "

Crews remove a damaged Orotone photograph from the Hall of State. The famous Orotone photographs taken by Polly Smith in the 1930s sustained some of the worst damage from the February 2021 storm.
Crews remove a damaged Orotone photograph from the Hall of State. The famous Orotone photographs taken by Polly Smith in the 1930s sustained some of the worst damage from the February 2021 storm.(Mark Birnbaum Productions)

Part of the new mandate is the effort to save Polly Smith's 18 Orotone photographs, whose fate remains uncertain.

Officials for the Texas Centennial commissioned Smith in 1935 to travel around Texas and make a series of photographs that sought to capture the people and places that made Texas unique. The images coincided with the state's 100-year anniversary. The photos were created using the Orotone process, in which an image is printed on a glass plate coated with a gelatin emulsion, and have hung in the hall ever since.

Rushton says water invaded the linen tape that seals the three plates of glass that make up each Orotone.

"They are in severe need of conservation, but I think we can repair almost all of them at this point. But it's an urgent need."

When Rushton brought in Lyzanne Gann, an independent photography conservator, "The look on her face was urgency. I said, 'Can you fix these?' She believes she can. She will do her best to try. These Orotones are extraordinarily rare. This collection we have is priceless, because there's nothing like it in the entire world."

For her part, Lill says, "We all feel better today than we did [on Feb. 17]. The items are safe in that building, and we were able to take care of things."

But, she adds, "I would hope, at some point in the future, that we can lobby to make sure Fair Park never again has its power grid shut off, for days at a time. That, at least, would be a start."

UPDATED at 3:45 p.m. Feb. 26 with more details of damage.

Water flows from the entrance at the Hall of State in Dallas on Feb. 17, 2021. The building was one of several Fair Park facilities that sustained water damage from broken water pipes during the winter storm.
Water flows from the entrance at the Hall of State in Dallas on Feb. 17, 2021. The building was one of several Fair Park facilities that sustained water damage from broken water pipes during the winter storm.(Courtesy of Stefan Kesler)

After Storm Assessment, Fair Park's Hall of State Suffered Millions in Damage - D Magazine

Posted: 26 Feb 2021 03:20 PM PST

Fair Park's historic Hall of State suffered about $3 million worth of damages after a pipe burst, flooding prominent rooms that contained historical archives dating back to the early 1900s. The Hall of State is among three Fair Park buildings that we know suffered damage in last week's storms, which include the Tower Building and the Cotton Bowl. (The Tower Building is where vaccine recipients are observed 15 minutes after receiving their doses, but Rocky Vaz, the city's director of the Office of Emergency Management, said the damage didn't affect those efforts this week.)

Julian Bowman, a spokesman for Fair Park's management company Spectra, declined to discuss the extent of damage elsewhere among the 277-acre grounds. He said the company is waiting to complete a "parkwide" assessment that will identify any other problems after last week's storm. Spectra will determine the source of damage in affected buildings, fix it, then establish longer-term solutions for severe weather conditions in the future. The Dallas Historical Society estimates about 10 percent of its collection was damaged.

The Dallas Morning News reported that the Cotton Bowl sustained $2 million worth of water damage, but Bowman would only say that Spectra hopes to complete its estimate by early next week. The State Fair Classic between Grambling State and Prairie View was scheduled for this week, but has been postponed until March 13 and moved from the Cotton Bowl to AT&T Stadium.

The damage to the Hall of State was particularly painful. Fair Park's most visible landmark, which is home to the Dallas Historical Society, had just completed a $14.4 million renovation last month. Now, the same company responsible for the renovations, Phoenix 1, will get back to work.

Karl Chiao, the executive director of the Dallas Historical Society, says most of the cost will be for building restorations. He believes only 10 percent of its archives—which include documents, photographs, maps, and other paper artifacts—suffered any sort of damage. Nine orotone prints produced in the 1930s by photographer Polly Smith had to be restored. The city of Dallas dispatched a conservator to help work on them; they were removed from the East Texas room.

Meanwhile, a collection of books and maps from the society's archival collection were transferred to Fort Worth by Belfor, a national property restoration company. There, the collection will be frozen and freeze-dried over 10 days to remove any remaining moisture.

Other items like books were kept safe in a shelving system, while maps were protected by archival file cabinets. The nonprofit says water damage was minimized because of the quick response from The Texas Collections Emergency Resource Alliance (TX-CERA), a disaster response agency of art conservators and preservation specialists who provide aid to cultural institutions.

Veletta Forsythe Lill, the board chair of the Dallas Historical Society, described the efforts as "Herculean." Conservators brought humidifiers on Wednesday and Thursday to reduce any remaining humidity in the facility. At the moment, DHS is monitoring archives through Boxcar, a multi-sensory program that monitors humidity in the archives on an hourly basis for collections staff to read. Lill characterized the current state of humidity, which is now under 30 percent, as very good. The News said humidity had risen to 70 percent, a dangerous amount for such delicate archives.

Phoenix 1, the hired contractor for this year's renovation, is working with the city's Parks and Recreation department and the Office of Arts and Culture to restore the building. Chiao said the recent restoration gave DHS a "better understanding of the restoration process to the Interior." Now, the Hall of State has operational water and electricity. It's not clear how long the restoration process will take to complete.

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