We Almost Lost the Civil War Today

So we're all there in the library, minding our own library business, when the waterfall started to gush. It was 9.00. Water was pouring down the back wall in sheets, falling back behind the bookstacks and running out underneath them, soaking the carpet into puddles. Within minutes, drops started falling from the ceiling into the puddles, splashing up onto the lowest shelf each of about four bookstacks, all in the American History section.

Oh, btw, no rain today, not a cloud in the sky.

Our two-pronged approach was to call the office for the head custodian pronto, and to start pulling books off those bottom shelves. Media Girl made the call, and then she joined the SCM and me in the book-saving process. Within minutes, the custodian was there, went up on the roof to see wtf was going on, and came back with this report:

There were roofers up there, trying to locate the leaks in the roof. They thought a really good way to do this would be to flood the roof and see what happened.

The flood slowed down a bit, and I beat it down to the principal's office and told him we were in semi-crisis stage because, although the water was slowing down, it was still coming, but we had saved the books. He was like "Huh?" and I told him that the roofers had flooded the roof. And he was all "There are roofers here?" but not puzzled and duh-like, more pissed-off, because the roofers were there without his knowledge or permission. He asked when the flood had started, and I looked at my watch and said "Twenty minutes ago."

He had been just about to leave the building for a meeting at the Superintendent's office, but within another twenty minutes, the principal, the superintendent, and the super's assistant were in the library telling the roofer to turn off the water and not to make any damn holes in the ceiling (which had been his plan.) The roofer was kind of dopey, hardly a surprise to anyone concerned. He had been authorized to repair the roof in the summer, when there were no kids in the building. He had also been authorized to come by this afternoon and look the situation over, no more.

As far as we go, they shop-vacced up the water and left fans going to dry everything off, and we have the whole section blocked off. Something in the area of maybe 800 books, starting with North American native peoples and ending somewhere around the Cold War, are on various carts or tables or the tops of nearby low bookstacks. It'll be like putting a really big jigsaw puzzle back together.

So, how was your day?

WATCHING FAMILY GUY :: ENTRY #1772