North Dakota State University Fights
to Salvage Flooded Materials
The North Dakota State University library is scrambling to save some 10,000 items that were inundated by floodwaters in the early hours of June 20. Interim Director Richard Bovard told the June 21 Grand Forks Herald that three staff members were working after midnight when windows and part of the building’s foundation gave way, sending four feet of water into the basement, soaking two-thirds of the bound academic and popular journals. The waters also reached the archives of the Institute for Regional Studies, which include rare documents and photographs on North Dakota and the region. Damage could total $10 million.
The Fargo Forum reported June 22 that Munters Moisture Control Services was to begin removing some 9,300 cubic feet of materials that day for transport to the firm’s document-drying center in Chicago. Library workers who had been moving materials were told to evacuate the building that morning after tests showed the water was contaminated and the air was dangerous after the building’s power and ventilation system had been shut down.
Posted June 26, 2000.
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