News Brief

Central library closes because of water damage

March 17, 2012 3:39 pm by Lance Knobel

Update, 7:02 pm: The Library confirms it will also be closed tomorrow, Sunday.

The Berkeley Public Library is closed today (Saturday) and probably tomorrow. A fire alarm went off and sprinklers went on automatically, causing water damage.

Julie Wong reports passes the news on from the BPL’s Facebook page: “The fire took place in one of the public bathrooms and it is unknown how it got started. All staff are OK and the public was evacuated. The main task now is to clean up the water from the very effective fire sprinkler system which has left a significant amount of water to be cleaned from the floors. It is likely that the Library will also be closed tomorrow, Sunday March 18th, but we will update you when we know more. Thanks again to you all, BPL staff appreciate your concern!”

Check the library’s website for updated information on opening.

10 Comments

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  • Julie Wong

    I’m glad no one was hurt.  I should clarify that I simply passed on the information from the BPL Facebook page; that is not my reportage.
     

  • http://www.davosnewbies.com lknobel

    Thanks, Julie. I’ll clarify.

  • Lhasa7

    I was by there earlier today and it appeared that there was water in the area near the front entrance, but not in the ground-floor stacks (as viewed from the sidewalk windows).

  • W_berk

    I stopped by to return books shortly after it happened and could see a tremendous amount of water cascading on to the 1st floor. Library employees and the Fire Dept. seemed to be working hard to protect the books on the shelves. Staff were out on the steps to hand-collect my (slightly overdue) books–nice grace under pressure!

  • Mike H

    Good to see that the sprinkler system functioned properly. Better to be closed a couple of days with minor damage, than to be closed a couple of months with major fire damage. Even if a few books are damage, the alternative could of been much worse.

  • no name

    Was there a fire?

  • ImJustIce

    The post should read, “Library SAVED by fire sprinkler system”  This is how sprinklers get a bad name.  If the building would have burned to the ground instead, I wonder if it would have been closed for more than a couple of days??  

  • John

    It sounds like the fire sprinklers did exactly what they are designed to do! It is always nice to see a catastrophe be averted.  It would be nice if the article gave props to these life and property saving devices.

  • Scott

    Lance, maybe you could clarify the rest of the story, too?  The event that caused the library to be closed was a fire.  The fire caused the sprinkler system to function as it is designed to do to protect life and property.  Had there not be a sprinkler system, the fire and smoke would have likely endangered lives and would certainly have caused more damage to the library, resulting in a much longer closure.  Thanks.

  • http://www.facebook.com/fyrdawg1962 Jerry Clark

    Yes, please stress to all that the reason the sprinklers activated was due to a FIRE, not simply the activation of the fire alarm.  The system performed exactly as designed, and quickly controlled the fire before it could get any larger.  And just for clarification, sprinklers are designed to deliver anywhere from 13 to 25 gallons of water per minute.  If it took about 5 minutes or so for the fire crews to arrive and investigate, then its most likely there was less than 200 gallons of water.  To put that into perspective, the average flow from an 1 3/4″ handline used by the crews is 250 gallons per minute.  So though it may have looked like a “tremendous” amount of water, had there been no sprinkler you could be rest assured that both the fire and water damage would have been ten times worse, IF it was caught in time to begin with.