Here's the recovery plan email I just received:

Timeline Set for Sinkhole Repair and Car Recovery

During a press conference today on Corvette Boulevard, Mike Murphy with Scott, Murphy & Daniel construction provided an update and timeline on the work to be done.

Highlights of the press conference include:

- This is very common for this area, what's not common is for a sinkhole to swallow eight Corvettes.
- It is repairable. The building foundation and structure is in good condition.
- They will be securing the sinkhole and surrounding areas to ensure that even if we have sinkholes on the property in the future it will not affect the Museum.
- It will take 2-3 weeks to stabilize and secure the area (red spire, walls of the sinkhole) then the process of vehicle recovery will begin.
- They will be making sure the sinkhole is safe and that no further damage will occur before starting vehicle recovery.
- It will take 4-6 days to retrieve the vehicles
- After that, they will replace earth and the floor system
- They have a good plan and it takes action tomorrow with no problems foreseen

"We are confident that it will be done in time for the Museum's 20th Anniversary Celebration in August. You won't even know that this has happened," said Wendell Strode, Museum Executive Director


Chevrolet to Oversee Restoration of Historic Corvettes

To help the National Corvette Museum recover from the massive sink hole, Chevrolet will be overseeing restoration of the Corvettes damaged. The process will be managed by General Motors Design in Warren, Mich.

“The vehicles at the National Corvette Museum are some of the most significant in automotive history,” said Mark Reuss, executive vice president of General Motors Global Product Development. “There can only be one 1-millionth Corvette ever built. We want to ensure as many of the damaged cars are restored as possible so fans from around the world can enjoy them.”

The restoration will be overseen by Ed Welburn, vice president of GM Global Design.

When the cars are recovered, they will be shipped to the Mechanical Assembly facility, a small specialty shop within GM Design, where the best restoration approach will be determined. Mechanical Assembly has been part of GM Design since the 1930s, and today maintains and restores many of the vehicles in the GM Heritage Collection and GM’s historic concept cars.

 

Nice announcements that seem to follow a disaster like this, mitigating the damage done, however, what would be interesting to see are the various engineering reports and master construction plan as it unfolds in real-time.

I'm glad they're so optimistic about it just 36 hours after the disaster struck.

 

good to hear fr. a construction co. head. sounds like it might work. let's hope so~!

 

Lately, you have made many cynical, negative, and nasty remarks about the NCM. Why the hate?

 

Where do you get that from my above comment?

 

Also, you have told people that Museum delivery is not that great, and you did it 8 years ago and apparently did not enjoy it. You also sarcastically refer to the Museum as the "Shrine".

 

Nice and Shrine..... OK, thanks.

 

Thanks for the update. We are planning on going to the museum and touring the plant the weekend of March 1st and really looking forward to it. I hope the weather is decent enough to drive the Corvette. This winter has been a rough one in the Bluegrass State!

 

Not Funny, Ok , Yea, it is!

 

Very positive news.Like to see the word SAFELY being used.Safer is better.Good they are confident with keeping that nice structure in tact Hopefully they'll keep the webcam running for the search and rescue team:
http://www.corvettemuseum.org/webcam/camera6.shtml

 

The museum has always taken on projects of gigantic proportions and kept on schedule to very successful conclusions. Other entities should do so well!

 

I am hoping all the vehicles will be restored. From the security camera we see that they fell pretty hard, 20/30 feet.

 

Couldn't one argue that not restoring the vehicles - would be part of the history of the Corvette as well?

I get the reasoning FOR restoring them, but it in itself is a strange turn of events in the Corvette history!