UTMB Mitigation Report and Photographs for Historic Buildings

The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) hired SWCA as a subcontractor to HDR, Inc., to provide a mitigation report and photographs of two buildings on the UTMB Galveston campus substantially damaged by 2008’s Hurricane Ike.

The damage required demolition of the 1964 Surgical Research Building and the 1966 Old Shriners Burn Institute. However, because both buildings were determined eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, mitigation under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act was required prior to demolition.

The SWCA team documented the buildings with digital photography and a report, which provided a comprehensive historic context of both buildings. Research also revealed the role of one man — Dr. Truman Graves Blocker, Jr. — in the development of plastic surgery in Texas and the U.S. as well as the incredible and innovative work sponsored by the Shriners and done at the Shriners Burn Institute in Galveston, where doctors treated severely burned children free of charge.

The report and photos are now stored at the Blocker History of Medicine collection located in the UTMB Moody Medical Library.