The bottom two floors of the Haverhill Public Library reopened yesterday after suffering water damage early last month.
Mayor Melinda E. Barrett announced at the start of the Jan. 30 City Council meeting that library staff “opened the door to a big puddle of a building” after back-to-back storms three weeks earlier. Library Director Sarah I. Moser went on to explain.
“We lost a lot of ceiling tiles, we had a ton of standing water, so a lot of wet carpets. Like the mayor said, luckily, the collection fared really well, and we lost almost no books, which is really good, because that would be a much more complicated and costly situation,” she said.
Though Moser told councilors the library was dry, she added that there were still open walls and ceiling tiles, leaving electrical fixtures exposed. That work has since been completed, and the public can now access the first and second floors. Moser told WHAV the library will send out an update once the third floor, which contains staff areas as well as special collections, reopens.
In response to a question from Councilor John A. Michitson about long-term improvements, Moser said the library’s trustees are planning to renovate the whole building, though construction is still “down the road a ways.” In the meantime, the roofing company and structural engineer have implemented temporary stopgaps to prevent water leaking through a third-floor wall, the culprit of the deluge.
“All of the experts that we’ve talked to have said, basically, this was just a perfect storm of weather problems, and that the likelihood of this happening again is really slim,” Moser said.
Library staff announced the reopening with a short video—also called a reel—on Facebook.