Officials have confirmed that a sprinkler malfunction that occurred in Vancouver’s Public Library last Friday morning had caused considerably worse water damage to the premises than previously thought.
The library’s sprinklers accidentally went off around 5:30am that day. During that time, a film crew using the library was wrapping up shooting for popular television series
Supergirl. The show’s production crew was forced to immediately vacate the library when the sprinklers suddenly turned on without warning, taking their equipment with them.
Books located in the library’s main section were fortunately protected from the water spray. On the other hand, a book sale scheduled for that day had to be canceled.
After the sprinkler problem was brought under control that day with the help of firefighters and film crew members, library officials said that the water damage was limited. The library then pushed on with its regular opening at 10am.
A week has passed since the incident, and the cause of the malfunction is still under investigation.
Chief librarian Sandra Singh told
CBC News that it will be a few weeks before the water damage is fully restored and the full cost is known.
“We are expecting that repairs will be covered by insurance, and we still don’t have a sense of the total cost of the repair,” Singh said.
The majority of the water damage occurred on the basement level of the library, where the meeting rooms’ walls and floors were flooded in. Moreover, a portion of the library’s automated sorting system was damaged in the incident. Until the system can be repaired, the library has resorted to sorting books by hand.
Nearly 1,000 books and DVDs from the library’s collection that were in the sorting system were damaged. Many second-hand books that were a part of an annual fundraising sale were also subjected to water damage.
Damage to the library was such that workers had to strip drywall to help dry the atrium area.
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