Burst Pipes and Leaky Roofs

Abstract

Libraries can face different kinds of emergency but planning for every contingency is an immense challenge. Overwhelmed with books and articles that focus mainly on the catastrophic events, librarians tend to place more emphasis on managing the risk of hurricanes and floods leaving then underprepared for the more mundane and common emergencies like burst pipes and leaky roofs. This chapter uses two case studies of small water emergencies to examine how each library managed those emergencies and what lessons were learned. They show that while both incidents were water-related, they were very different in terms of source, size, impact, recovery time, and frequency. Libraries should be planning for small disasters first, and then scaling up preparation to account for the larger events, rather than the reverse. More libraries may do such planning if they are preparing for a probable scenario rather than one that is only a possibility.