The National Library of Canada is salvaging some 7,500 waterlogged documents and books that were doused January 2 when a pipe burst in the basement after temperatures plummeted to –33° Celsius. Damage was estimated in the $300,000 range.
"All the materials have now been moved to a freezer in a facility operated by the National Archives," said NLC spokesman Tom Delsey. He noted that the latest flooding is just one of many the facility has endured in recent years. Last January water from a burst pipe engulfed some 14 million documents in a portion of the building used by the National Archives, which has now largely moved its storage areas to a new $89-million state-of-the-art facility.
The flooding problems have been so bad that library staffers have been organized into Response Action Teams (RATs) trained in such techniques as wet-vacuuming. A freezer truck is generally stationed outside the library to be ready for the next disaster.
Posted February 1, 1999.