Books Spared in Library Flood
The East Hampton Library dodged a disaster on Feb. 16, when a custodian discovered water cascading down an exterior stairwell, flooding the basement. Cleanup began almost immediately, but as of Monday the basement level was still closed to the public and heaters and fans were still at work drying out the space.
The water had risen to about four feet deep at the bottom of the exterior stairwell. It seeped under the exterior door, formed a stream about six inches deep across the floor of the adult nonfiction area in the older section of the library, and stopped just feet from the door to the Long Island Collection's lower-level archive area. "We were incredibly lucky," Dennis Fabiszak, director of the library, said Friday.
It was just one of numerous incidents throughout the town after a record cold Valentine's Day followed two days later by an almost 60-degree rise in temperature. The warmer weather produced a veritable deluge of calls to the police reporting burst water pipes in houses and businesses.
In the case of the library, timing was everything. An exterior check valve on the water main burst at about 8 a.m. Tuesday morning. The library had been closed the previous 36 hours for President's Day. The waterfall down the stairs continued for about an hour until it was spotted and the main was shut off.
If the flood had continued unabated, it would have continued under the next door it met, leading to the historical section. Even if it didn't come in contact with irreplaceable documents, maps, and other paper items, the mere presence of moisture in that room from such a flood could have caused devastating damage, Mr. Fabiszak said.
As it was, only a couple of boxes of books that had been stored in a closet were damaged.
Had the pipe had burst the night before, as many others did from Wainscott to Montauk, the results would have been much worse.
Mr. Fabiszak saw the incident as a blessing in disguise. The basement was quickly pumped out and the exterior pipe has since been replaced and configured in such a way that if it ever is to burst again the water will be directed towards the street. In addition, cameras are being installed to monitor the area.
According to East Hampton Town Police Sgt. Chelsea Tierney, calls to the police concerning burst pipes from Feb. 14 to Feb. 16 came from three sources: neighbors of the afflicted buildings, professional house watchers, and fire chiefs investigating calls from automatic alarm systems.
In the 48-hour period from Feb. 14 through Feb. 15, there were 28 such calls on the police activity log, with many more coming in during the early morning of Feb. 16. The weekend before saw only nine.