[MSN] The opening of the Kansas Underground Salt Museum again will be delayed while emergency equipment is installed at the 650-foot-deep museum.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

Posted on Sun, Dec. 10, 2006


Safety installation delays salt museum opening
Associated Press
The opening of the Kansas Underground Salt Museum again will be delayed
while emergency equipment is installed at the 650-foot-deep museum.

Linda Schmitt, director of the Reno County Historical Society, said two
upcoming group tours of the yet-to-be-completed museum have been canceled
because of safety concerns and that other tours might also be canceled.

"From the get-go on this project we have probably been overly cautious,"
Schmitt said. "But we want to ensure that the salt mine is a safe, pleasant
experience."

Schmitt said the difficulty of creating the nation's first underground salt
museum has led to the delays. The museum had been scheduled to open in
September.

"I don't think anybody had any idea just how difficult some of this was
going to be," Schmitt said. "Some people like to say we're reinventing the
wheel, but we're really inventing the wheel for the first time."

Although there have been no problems in the operation of the museum's
double-decker elevator, which travels 650 feet below the earth's surface to
the museum's mine floor, Schmitt said a rescue system is needed in the
improbable event the elevator malfunctions.

"The likelihood of something happening is extremely remote," Schmitt said,
"but we want to be prepared for everything."

Frank Alexander, project manager of the museum, said engineers are designing
a safety beam for the top of the elevator shaft. The beam will hold a series
of pulleys that rescue workers could use to lower themselves down the
elevator shaft to stranded passengers.

He said the museum has worked with the Hutchinson Fire Department to buy
mountain climbing equipment, including a rescue cage and harnesses, and
firefighters will practice rescue operations in the elevator shaft before
the museum opens.

"If the elevator is more than halfway down, then they'll lower people to the
bottom," Alexander said. "If it's closer to the top, they'll pull people
out, but it's much easier to lower people down."

The museum floor will be accessed by two separate elevators, the main museum
elevator and an elevator used by Underground Vaults and Storage. Other
safety features in the mine include a safe room to be used in case of fire
and the requirement that all visitors wear a hardhat and a rescue breathing
device.

Alexander estimated the new safety measures could take two to three weeks to
install, pushing back an already delayed starting date. No timetable was
given for the official opening of the museum.

http://www.kansas.com/