Manchester City Library

On Wednesday February 18^th Library staff and City officials met with our insurance adjustors to begin the process of addressing the massive flood which impacted the branch the evening before. The branch’s lower level, where the majority of our collection is housed, was under 5 feet of water. Books, tables, desks, chairs were floating.

Clean up started on Thursday February 19^th and it will take quite some time to complete as we have to remove over 17,000 water damaged library materials, all the furniture, computer equipment, wall board, carpeting, and flooring. The elevator needs repairs and all the electrical panels were submerged as were our networking equipment. Nor does the building currently have water service.

We were able to save approximately 3,000 books and audiobooks which have been moved over to the main library for inventory for insurance purposes.

This cleanup is going to take a significant amount of time and then we have to plan reconstruction. We cannot offer any time frame as to when we’ll have the building back up and running but library staff will keep you posted via this blog.

To all of you have offered your support, services and donations I personally wish to thank you. This has been a stressful time but we look forward to rebuilding your branch.

Denise M. van Zanten

Library Director