There’s a sign on the door and fans and dehumidifiers are set up throughout the building as clean up efforts continue at the Clarkesville Library. Flooding over the weekend forced the facility on East Green Street to close. The library sits on a hill above the Clarkesville Fire Department which also flooded when the remnants of Hurricane Delta dumped copious amounts of rain on the region.
“Every room in the library has wet carpet. Some areas were more saturated than others. The sheetrock is quite wet at the baseboards as well,” says Clarkesville Library Manager Shawna Meers-Ernst.
Although library officials are not exactly sure how much water got into the building, the waterline on the outside shows there was significant pooling. On Sunday, a crew from a commercial cleanup and restoration franchise began extracting water from the carpet. ServePro set up over one hundred fans and a dozen dehumidifiers inside the library.
Workers from the Habersham County Maintenance Department and a board of trustees member helped move furniture and remove baseboards on Sunday. The county manager also visited the library to offer his support and survey the damage.
“We removed baseboards in a majority of the library so those will have to be replaced. The carpet has separated from the floor in many places causing it to be uneven and lumpy. That is concerning because it could be a trip hazard,” says Meers-Ernst. “Right now it is just a matter of waiting to see how the building dries out.”
If the building dries out properly they will not have to replace the drywall, but the process is moving slowly. Once the library does dry out, staff and maintenance will have to assess the carpet and put the rooms back together. As a result, the library will remain closed for the foreseeable future.
“Naively, I thought we would reopen this week but we won’t be ready,” says Meers-Ernst.
No books lost
As of late Monday, workers still had not begun cleaning up the exterior of the building where a layer of mud covered up the children’s garden patio and the sidewalk to the staff entrance.
While there is no official cost estimate on repairs at this time, it’s clear it will run into the thousands of dollars. “The equipment we are using from ServePro can cost upwards of $2,500 per 24 hour period,” Meers-Ernst explains.
For all the mess and damage, not a single book or barcoded item from the library’s 50,000 plus collection was lost. For the time being, patrons don’t have to worry about late fees. The Clarkesville Library will automatically renew all checked out materials. People wishing to return books and other materials to the library before it reopens may drop them off in the outside bins.
This marks the second time this year the Clarkesville Library has been closed for an extended period of time. The facility reopened in July after shutting down for several months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meers-Ernst says she and her staff are eager to reopen and resume normal operations once again.
“We love what we do and we know the community relies on us.”
