On August 20, water was still trickling into the basements of the two Boston Public Library buildings flooded four days earlier by a burst water main, but pumps have been able to prevent further damage, supervisor of General Library Services June Eiselstein told American Libraries.
As well as damaging documents and patents in the McKim building, the August 16 flood soaked a significant proportion of the library's sound archives, a lecture hall, some of the research library departments, the gifts department, the supply room, and the AV department's 16-mm film collection, all in the adjacent Johnson building.
The McKim building remains closed, but the Johnson building reopened August 20. Priority, irreplaceable, and expensive materials have been removed to refrigerated trucks for transport to Disaster Recovery Services, a vacuum freeze-drying facility in Fort Worth, Texas.
"Both buildings are on backfill in an area reclaimed from Boston's Back Bay," Eisenstein said. "The McKim building floats on wood piling, and the Johnson building floats on concrete slabs. We're like Venice, and we have to check the water level on a daily basis."
Posted August 24, 1998.