Monroe County's new library branch remains closed 10 weeks after storm. What we know.

Around 7 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 15, Brian Leibacher stepped inside the recently opened southwest branch of the Monroe County Public Library and heard the sound of rain.

Leibacher, the library’s building services director, called MCPL Director Grier Carson and told him, “It’s raining inside the building,” Carson recalled.

When the library director arrived, he hurried to a hallway near the facility's western entrance and saw water leaking from the ceiling. The floor had been covered in 3 to 4 inches. Carson was relieved to determine the broken pipe contained water — not sewage — but the deluge had spread into adjacent rooms, down the hallway and into other parts of the $14.5-million structure that opened to the community only a few months earlier.

“Close to half the building … had standing water all throughout,” Carson said last week, pointing up to the area where missing ceiling tiles revealed parts of the facility’s dark, cavernous guts, still waiting for repairs.

Carson stood on a strip of cardboard covering the concrete floor. Crews from the mitigation company ripped up half of the library’s vinyl plank flooring. Nearby, the bottom 3 feet of walls have been removed, revealing views of adjacent rooms. Water damaged the wall insulation that served to dampen sounds.

The water also ruined some carpeted areas and the bottom of some wooden bookshelves — though the moisture did not reach any books.

Library staff collected the books and other items in the collection to crowd them into unaffected parts of the structure.

The branch, opened with much fanfare last summer, has been closed since that January day.

When he first surveyed the damage, Carson said he was “shocked and heartbroken for the public” who had just been allowed to access a brand new library. People had clearly enjoyed it and were engaged with the staff, only to see the facility suddenly close.

“I’m also … heartbroken for our staff, because they’re the ones who’ve made this branch so successful,” he said. “And it’s through those patron connections that they achieved that success. And now we have to uproot them and say, ‘We’ve got to take your building away, and you’re going to do other things for a while.’”

How the Monroe County Library's southwest branch was damaged

On Friday, Jan. 12, three days before library officials discovered the damage, heavy rains inundated Bloomington for about 12 hours, Carson said. Temperatures fell drastically over the next few hours.

The library’s HVAC system is highly automated and responds to weather and activities, Carson said. When temperatures plummeted after the rain, an HVAC system component froze and kept a vent on the facility’s roof in an open position.

“It stayed open long enough that the freezing air came into the HVAC system,” Carson said. “And when it met with the hot air and water from … our heat, it busted some of the pipes.”

Water leaked from the ceiling for an estimated four or five hours.

Carson cautioned the exact sequence and cause — a manufacturing or installation error or just bad luck — are still under investigation by the insurance company, Cincinnati Insurance.

“Of course there are attorneys involved for both the insurance company and all of the contractors and subcontractors that are part of this investigation,” he said. “So that can hold things up considerably.”

Carson estimated the damages to be near $500,000, though final figures are difficult to project, in part because it’s unclear whether the library will have to replace only the damaged flooring — or the entire floor, if replacements don’t match the existing planks.

The library has already received $200,000 — it had to pay its $10,000 deductible — and Carson said he expects the insurance money to cover all of the damages eventually.

The payment and the availability of replacement parts will determine when MCPL can reopen the facility, but Carson said that probably won’t happen before June — and maybe not until mid-summer.

'One of those remarkable twists of fate'

The library system built the branch in part to provide easier access to patrons on the city’s southwest side. Carson said it proved popular especially with students from nearby Batchelor Middle School.

Eric Gilpin, principal of Batchelor, said the southwest branch gained popularity among the student body throughout the school year. Dozens of students would head over to the facility after school to do homework, read in the quiet spaces and spend time with friends. Many of the students live in the southwest part of town and would walk home from the library or be picked up by their parents after work, he said.

Students have asked the school staff when the library will reopen, Gilpin said. They’ve also walked by the facility to check, but signs still declare the facility closed.

“We really miss it,” the principal said.

The southwest branch has tranquil areas for reading, such as on the southeast side, but three central spaces were designed to accommodate a bit more noise, or even rambunctiousness.

A teen space has a video game area with a PS5 gaming system and virtual reality headset, a large monitor and collaborative workspaces.

A conference room in the teen area features a dry erase wall.

The building's architect, Christine Matheu, designed the structure to take advantage of its tranquil surroundings.

Natural light floods into the building through walls of glass, while views of trees in the children’s area evoke lounging in a treehouse.

“The whole building is intended to be … restful and connecting you with the natural world and making you feel at peace,” Matheu said last summer just before the facility opened.

A treehouse with 'lightsaber' fixtures: Look inside the library branch before the flood

Carson said representatives from the library and contractors drove to Indianapolis Jan. 9 to witness Matheu receive an award for the building from the American Institute of Architects.

The event lifted everyone’s spirits, Carson said. Six days later, he stood in the library in inches of water.

“It’s just one of those really remarkable twists of fate,” he said.

This week, Matheu said via email, “We all hope repairs may be completed as soon as possible so the library may reopen and return to its place as an outstanding and beloved resource center for Monroe County.”

The collection remains inaccessible, but Carson said the library system has duplicates of nearly everything, which means patrons can still get the items in the downtown library or the Ellettsville branch. Southwest branch staffers have been reassigned to other duties, including the other locations.

Carson said, without downplaying the severity of the event, he believes eventually it will be just a blip in the building’s history.

“The momentum that we’ve had for this branch, you can’t recapture it, or rekindle it,” he said, “ … but we do believe that once we get open again, and people get used to coming back in, we’ll just pick up where we left off.”

Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington's southwest library branch still closed 10 weeks after storm