A burst water pipe discovered Wednesday morning, Jan. 17, led to the closure of the Festus Public Library that day and the library’s doors remain closed today.
“The remediation has begun,” said Matt Unrein, the Festus assistant city administrator and public works director. “(The pipe burst) is cold-weather related. The heating was not working as it should and a pipe froze in the wall. It burst and there’s a big mess.”
As of about 2 p.m. today, Jan. 18, library director Elizabeth Steffen said she did not yet know when the library at 400 W. Main St. would reopen to the public.
“We will be closed all day today again,” Steffen said. “I don’t know when we’ll be open again.”
She said the water pipe burst in a wall facing the parking lot in the library’s large meeting room on the west side of the facility.
“I came in at about 8 a.m. (Jan. 17) and noticed a puddle in the center of the library,” she said. “You could hear the rushing of water. I was the first in. Water was shooting out of the pipe. There was at least an inch of water in the large meeting room.
“I called our maintenance man, Jim Tindall, and he had me shut off the water to the library completely. He got here as soon as he could and was able to locate and shut off the valve where the leak was happening and there is water to the rest of the building.”
She said she contacted City Administrator Greg Camp about how to proceed after discovering the water damage.
Steffen said the timing of the water pipe burst could not be pinpointed, noting that a custodian left the facility at 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. Jan. 16 and the facility was empty until she arrived the next morning.
She said she continues to assess the damage while repairs and cleanup occurs. The city hired Midwest Restoration Pros to perform immediate cleanup work.
“No books were lost,” Steffen said. “The pipe burst was far away from the books, luckily. But, the water got to the carpet. And, we’re having to pull out insulation because water got into the wall. We’ll have to replace drywall. They pulled out some cabinets from the meeting room. We hope to see if they are salvageable.
“Just with the remediation (Midwest Restoration Pros) is doing right now, it’s $6,700. That does not include what it will cost for carpet replacement, drywall repair, replacing insulation and fixing the plumbing damage.”
She said those costs are to be determined.
She said she believes a problem with the facility’s HVAC system at least contributed to the water pipe burst, along with a brutal cold snap covering several days.
“The heating wasn’t working correctly,” Steffen said. “A staff member checked Monday (Jan. 15, when the library was closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day) and it was 43 degrees in the large meeting room,” Steffen said. “I checked Tuesday and it was 40 degrees. Even the heat in the main room of the library wasn’t working correctly. It was 60, 62 degrees in there.”
Steffen said a company was called Jan. 16 to fix the HVAC in the entire library and the heating was restored that day.
However, between the HVAC problems and outside temperatures dipping to below zero and the heat returning, it many have been too much for the pipe to bear, she said.
“We wonder if the problem was the pipe is part of an outside wall and because it was so cold outside and in the room, the pipe froze,” she said. “Then, when they got the heat going, it could have caused the pipe to burst. That’s my guess.”
She said it is not yet known when groups may use the library’s meeting rooms again.
“Anything that was in the large meeting room is now stored in the smaller meeting room, so we have no meeting rooms at the moment,” Steffen said.