Y'know that Chinese curse about living in interesting times?

[frolijahfan]

I got a call from my friend before I was due at work telling me to dress warmly because the boilers weren't working. So I get to work and am hearing horror stories about small leaks over one of the computers and ice forming on the surface of the toilets. Apparently the boilers hadn't been working yesterday, either (and no one called the director to tell her). About an hour later all the alarms start going off and we have a literal waterfall in the Circulation Dept. Ended up with about 2 inches of water through the entire dept. and out into parts of the Children's Room and the large print/AV areas. Some of the pipes froze and burst (and with no heat in the building and temperatures in the single digits and windchills in the minus teens, this is not a surprise). So the end result of this is that we'll be closed to the public until at least Friday while a restoration company tries to fix the water damage and forestall mold, etc. problems before we can try to restore the computers and security systems.

Comments

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

Oh, my gosh, that's terrible.

[frolijahfan.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, I don't think that we lost a whole lot in the way of materials (books, etc.), but I fear that at least some of the computers in Circulation are toast. Won't know for sure until later in the week--the restoration people are supposed to finish up on Wednesday, but then we need to get our security company and the technology people in to try and get things up and running on Thursday. Thank goodness it was nowhere near the computer room, or we could have taken the other two libraries in the county down with us (we house the server for the whole county system). And to make things even more wonderful, they're predicting 6-10 inches of snow tomorrow. Happy, joy.

[ex-lbilover.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh!! As a fellow librarian, I can only imagine how difficult it must be to deal with a disaster like that. I hope the restoration company can work their magic and save as much as possible.

[frolijahfan.livejournal.com]

The director has asked for lists of damaged items and we've already had the insurance people out today, so at least they're not trying to duck the problem. I still think that the biggest loss will be the computers and probably the carpet (no loss, it's incredibly ugly!), but we'll see when people get their lists in. Fortunately, my department (Technical Services)is at the other end of the building so we had nothing directly affected (other than having to answer the doorbell at the staff entrance for all the people who can't get in through the main entrance).