Water Damaged Ft Lauderdale Library Reopens Monday

Late Fees Waived

Book lovers can return to Fort Lauderdale’s main Library Monday after it was closed last week due to water damage.

The city’s main Library was shutdown after it was flooded by its sprinkler system.

A system test went bad Friday, causing extensive damage to the downtown facility.

Crews over the weekend used dehumidifiers and fans to clean the place up. Library officials say only two comic books were damaged, despite the deluge.

Late fees were waived until the building reopens Monday.

All cleaned up after an internal flood, Broward County’s Main Library will reopen at 10 a.m. today, officials said.

A sprinkler test went awry Friday morning and caused extensive damage to the library at 100 S. Andrews Ave in downtown Fort Lauderdale.

“Something went horribly wrong,” said County Library Director Bob Cannon.

Over the weekend, crews used dehumidifiers and fans to clean up the area. Out of the extensive book collection, only two old comic books were damaged, Cannon said.

Late fees were waived while the library was closed, but they will be back in force on Monday.

Crews were testing the sprinklers early Friday morning when a large quantity of water began gushing from the seventh floor. The torrent cascaded through the building’s atrium to the ground floor.

The seventh floor is where the county library system’s main computer system is housed, and Cannon said his chief concern was that the flooding damaged the electrical lines that serve it. Power was temporarily shut off.

The building’s air conditioning system was also affected, so workers brought in small air conditioning units to cool the computers when they were switched back on.

The 35 other branch libraries across Broward County were affected for a time because their checkout, catalog and computer labs are networked through the computers at the main library. Librarians at those branches manually checked out books and other materials until the computer system was brought back online Friday afternoon.

The main library’s sixth floor, home to the Bienes Museum of the Modern Book, also was heavily flooded. Cannon said there appeared to be no damage to the rare book collection except for the old comic books whose display cases were flooded. The collection includes first editions of classic American authors as well as Depression-era New Deal writing projects.