Calgary

National Music Centre gets $50K to repair flood damage

The federal government is donating money to help Calgary's National Music Centre repair flood-damaged artifacts.

143 pianos among 200 artifacts damaged by floodwaters, muck in basement

The National Music Centre's Mary Kapusta says getting $50,000 from the federal government will help them restore flood-damaged instruments and archives. (CBC)

The federal government is donating money to help Calgary's National Music Centre repair flood-damaged artifacts.

Ottawa is kicking in about $50,000 so the items can be relocated to a temporary storage area for restoration. Roughly 7,000 square feet of the downtown centre was flooded last June, including the basement, where archival material was kept.

"What makes us so special is that we have this incredible range of instruments you can't find anywhere else," said Mary Kapusta of the National Music Centre. "Some of that knowledge and our electronic inventory was in the basement and that was all damaged."

Some of the archival material damaged includes user manuals from the 1960s, '70s and '80s.

The water never reached the core display on the second floor, but about 200 artifacts were damaged, including 143 pianos.