StLGS Office Faced with Extensive Water Damage!

The week of July 4th brought intensive rain to the St. Louis area, mostly carried in by the hurricane that blew into the Gulf Coast. For many years, the flat roof of our building has leaked sporadically, but this month's torrents were relentless, and rain poured into our office. When the first of the office volunteers opened the doors on Saturday, July 6th, they were greeted by collapsed ceiling tiles, soaked countertops, and dripping holes, some of which were directly over very expensive equipment. These first volunteers began to clean up and cover surfaces, but the worst was still to come.

During the next few days, hard-working volunteers continued covering computer equipment and met with maintenance personnel sent by our landlord. However, what they discovered was that by mid-week, more leaks had developed. Water continued to pour down the walls and drip from light fixtures. More ceiling tiles showed staining from leaks. Clearly, the situation was too dangerous for anyone to try to work, and the office was closed to all but some core volunteers.

As it turned out, the roofs throughout the entire complex were similarly leaking, and, at long last, our landlord seemed willing to redo the roofs properly, although that is going to take some time. Meanwhile, volunteers at our office took down and threw away almost fifty ceiling tiles leaving spaces for air to circulate, and they started to run fans to prevent mold. In the process, they also discovered at least one open junction box with exposed wires that had been hidden from sight.

In spite of no rain, new leaks kept appearing as late as the 14th of July, especially in and around our print room and in the large room we use for classes and where many of our volunteers work. Finally, on 16 July, our landlord told us a roofing company was doing some temporary work and they were monitoring some freshly installed ceiling tiles for new leaks. They are in the process of contracting with a company for long-term repair work, but there currently is no time table.

Plans Change!

Because of the extent of the ceiling damage and the persistent leaking, all office-based activities have been curtailed. A core group of volunteers is still working, but the office is closed to the public for the foreseeable future.

• The "Legacy Family Tree, Version 10" class held on 20 July was conducted as a Zoom-only event, so if you missed it, you can still watch it on our "Recorded Classes" page, if you are an StLGS member.
• The Irish SIG meeting, scheduled for Saturday, 27 July, will now be held at the St. Louis County Library Clark Family Branch, 1640 South Lindbergh, at 1:00 p.m. (Central). This will be a hybrid meeting, so you can attend in person or register for the Zoom webinar.
• August meetings and classes that were to be held in our office may need to be rescheduled or presented as Zoom webinars. Please watch our website or any of our social media pages for updates. The August monthly meeting will not be affected, as that was already scheduled for the St. Louis County Library Clark Family Branch.

Here are some photos so you can better see what the current situation is. The worst of the damage is in our print room. That's our high-speed copier under the black plastic with a bucket to catch water from the leaking tile above. All those black holes in the ceiling show where ceiling tiles caved in due to leaks.

Below is our classroom/volunteer work area. Again, black holes in the ceiling indicate where water damaged tiles were. The middle photo shows newly damaged tiles from continued leaks, and the bottom photo shows the Ask Louie research area.

In other areas of the office, there were random leaks, like the top photo of the publications/programs area. But, in spite of the inconvenience, as you can see in the last photo, core volunteers are coming in to be sure work gets done.

(Photos by Kathy Franke and Ilene Murray; used with permission)

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Blog Snafu, Too

You may have noticed that this blog did not arrive in your inbox over the past two weeks, and for that we sincerely apologize. Your blogger took a much-needed vacation to Europe, taking only her iPad with her, and because of the time difference and insecure Wi-Fi, she was unable to work on the Blogspot website. Although she did leave two blog posts ready for publishing, her trusty assistant had a bit of difficulty with them, so in spite of everyone's best efforts, they did not get emailed. We are back on schedule now, and you should be receiving our StLGS News Flash every Monday as usual.