Rebuilding lives, restoring memories

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In a recent episode of ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in New Orleans, a worldwide HP team of digital imaging experts restored hundreds of damaged photos for families affected by Hurricane Katrina – bringing precious memories back home again.

When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast seven months ago, Rita followed close behind – creating a hurricane season that became the most disastrous the U.S. had ever endured.

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Yet, New Orleans native Madeline Faust remembers another storm on another day back in 1965, when Hurricane Betsy’s winds hit and flooded large parts of the city. That kind of memory stays with you – and teaches you the importance of preserving memories.

That’s why, before taking shelter at the local sugar refinery, Madeline hurriedly tucked her family photos into a sealed container in her car, taping the outside lip for extra protection against the rising waters. Inside, were photos of her grandchildren and husband – once inducted into the local Baseball Hall of Fame and now deceased.

Most of the photos survived as the car flooded. But when Madeline heard about the HP Photo Restoration Day in St. Bernard, a suburb of New Orleans, she saw an opportunity to restore some photos and recreate some memories.

Hundreds of photos, a few days

Madeline, along with nearly 50 other families is the area, took part in the restoration event, held on February 21 - 23. An HP Mobile Restoration Vehicle became a scanning and photo recovery station for on-site HP employees. A team of over 250 HP digital imaging experts from around the world volunteered hours of time to download and restore over 350 photos. (Read more about the HP photo restoration process below.)

Wearing her heart on a sleeve

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To Madeline, one of her most treasured old photos depicted the girls shown at left. Using digital imaging technology to repair the photo shown at left, HP technicians removed scratches and the “specks” that often dot and distort many old photographs.

But to fully appreciate the work involved, take a look at the taller girl’s sleeve, almost completely ruined in the original. Using their digital imaging expertise, HP employees became like time-traveling tailors as they copied, rotated, sized and stretched the image of the right sleeve to recreate a new left sleeve. The work is nearly imperceptible in the newly restored image.

Something old, something new

You must evacuate the home you’ve lived in for 45 years. You raised five children there. You scan the room, what do you take? For John A. Broggi and his wife, the answer was clear: cherished wedding photos of their daughters, damaged by the wet storm.

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As their home flooded, John went missing for days while his wife stayed with family in Baton Rouge. Once reunited, they were anxious to salvage the photos that helped them remember happier times.

Unfortunately, water marks had spotted the top of their daughter’s picture, and two larger drips had nearly ruined the photo entirely, shown above. HP volunteers put back what water damage had tried to take away, and their daughter once more became the blushing bride John and his wife remembered.

“There are worse things than missing a few limbs…”

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Karen Gildea is a double amputee with breast cancer and Crest Syndrome, an auto-immune disease. Before Katrina filled her rented house with nearly 12 feet of water, Karen evacuated her home, leaving her electric wheelchair and three large photo albums behind. She believed the photos were most likely ruined, yet hadn’t been able to get to them with all the debris blocking her bedroom door.

“I wanted to have part of my life back,” Karen says. “I’d lost so much already … a picture of my childhood, when I was whole ... a picture of my daughter’s childhood … my graduation … these things I could never have back if they’d all been lost. There are worse things than missing a few limbs.”

Thanks to HP and people working on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, who featured Karen on the show, she was able to recover some of her photos, like the beach photo shown here from many years ago.

Oreo’s escape

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Humans weren’t the only ones endangered by Katrina. Millions of beloved pets were also lost. But Oreo the Hamster had Haley’s protection when Katrina destroyed both their homes.

All family members escaped to safety, but Haley and Oreo’s mom Karen Rupp wanted to restore the only reminders left of a life that was so sadly washed away in twelve feet of water. Haley had her own agenda: She wanted to save photos of Oreo.

At HP Photo Restoration Day, HP volunteers pleased both mother and child with this restored photo, shown above.

For out more about how HP can help you restore some of your own memories. See the links, below.

	HP Photo Restoration Day The on-site restoration team used HP PCs, scanners and HP Photosmart Premier Software to scan damaged photos and uploaded them onto an HP ProLiant High Availability server cluster, via a custom web and database interface created by HP for the project. Volunteers around the world downloaded and restored the photos, often creating photographs that were larger and of higher quality than the originals. The on-site team printed the photos on HP Photosmart Printers, framed them and presented hundreds of restored photos to families awaiting their rebirth and return. The families also received digital copies of the photos on HP Lightscribe CDs. Further, every family’s photos were uploaded to HP Snapfish, HP’s online photo finishing service where people can share, print and create gifts from their photos. The families also received free Snapfish credits.