| NEWS
| July 19, 2005
Facilities
Library loses power, floods
Storms caused the Central Library
to lose power Friday, and six inches of rain and four inches of
mud were removed.
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| The Shorthorn: Sara Bookout |
| A university worker uses
a squeegee to push rain water and mud into a suction hose
Friday in the Central Library mechanical room. The rain
caused a power outage that temporarily shut down three
floors. |
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By Tracie
Morales
The Shorthorn Staff
The Central Library resumed operations
Saturday after rainstorms caused a power outage on the third, fourth
and fifth floors Friday.
Carleen Dolan, library facilities and procurement manager, said
the mechanical room became flooded, which caused the elevators and
library servers to go down.
“It’s a horrible mess,” she said.
Bryan Sims, Physical Plant associate director, said an electrical
switch gear that powers the building short-circuited in the flooding,
allowing six inches of rain and four inches of mud in through an
air duct above the mechanical room.
“An extensive amount of rain water got into the mechanical
room,” he said.
Dolan said the mud in the mechanical room was from a generator project
in construction near the air duct. She said the removal of the rain
and mud water required giant sewer pumps.
According to Dolan, in emergencies, the future generator will power
the Central Library, elevators and the Office of Information Technology
hub, which powers most campus servers and e-mails. She said the
new generator will keep and protect students connected in emergencies
like these and that the generator should be completed by mid-August.
Lead electrician Russell Ausmus said the flooding employed five
crews including outside contractors, Roto-Rooter and university
plumbing departments to remove the mud and rain water from the mechanical
room. In order to prevent accidents, crews used fans to dry the
water before working on the wet electrical parts.
“They have open switch gears down there,” he said.
Despite the power outage, Dolan said the library didn’t want
to inconvenience students that were still working in the basement,
first and second floors, so library employees fumbled through the
darkness with flashlights to collect books for students as they
needed them.
“We are trying to be helpful,” she said.
Business management junior Joseph Davila said he had to go to another
library to find some reference material but that he didn’t
mind.
“Overall, it is not a big deal,” he said.
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