Hildebran museum floods after pipe bursts during cold weather

HILDEBRAN, N.C. — People at the Hildebran Heritage Museum are cleaning up after a pipe recently burst during cold weather.

The waterline was up to the doorknobs inside the building on South Center Street in Hildebran.

Efforts were underway last week to save many of the items before heavy snow arrived on Saturday.

Bill Jones, vice president of the museum, has been volunteering for more than 10 years and said they are going to do what they can to salvage some of the exhibits.

However, he admits there was so much water in the building that some of the items will have to be thrown out.

The pipe broke in a crawl space in another part of the building and then the water came rushing into the museum.

There were blueprints for the old Hildebran school that were damaged along with newspapers and other local artifacts.

“A lot of it is on loan from citizens in the community, outside the community,” Jones said. “George Hildebrand has a lot to do with this museum the town of Hildebran does. A lot of this stuff you can’t put a price on. It’s irreplaceable.”

Some archive experts have reached out to help, and Jones said is hoping to get help from the community with the cleanup.

“Today I’m taking the World War II uniforms and all the military stuff to the dry cleaners because those were floating in the water over here,” Jones said.

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