The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley Water damage — caused by several leaks in the roof — has left the Elkins-Randolph County Library closed since December.

The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley
Water damage — caused by several leaks in the roof — has left the Elkins-Randolph County Library closed since December.

ELKINS — Due to water damages sustained at the Elkins Randolph County Public Library during Christmas break in December, the facility has remained closed to the public and officials do not see a reopening date in the foreseeable future.

“We are hoping to meet with contractors next week and we should have a better understanding of what to expect moving forward,” ERCPL Director Jared Howell told The Inter-Mountain.

“We haven’t received any real timeline on how long the repairs may take, but the initial assessment was six to eight months,” he said. “Once we get more information from the contractors, however, we will be able to determine an actual time frame of how long it’s going to take.”

When library employees returned to work after being off for the holiday on Dec. 27, they were welcomed by water damage. The facility’s roof had leaked throughout the building, which led to a substantial amount of damage.

“It ultimately damaged everything inside with the exception of the books,” Howell said. “But honestly that is still yet to be determined also, because all of (the books) haven’t been gone through yet. But at the same time we haven’t seen a lot of book damage.”

Since the incident, the Perfection Plus company has been handling the cleanup process, as well as the gutting of everything inside the library.

“There was a phenomenal amount of water that came through our roof and it’s taken this long just to get everything out of there,” Howell said. “Perfection Plus came in and did all the water remediation and the removal of all the materials. They are also in charge of storing the materials and evaluating the damages.”

Howell said the library is currently looking for a location within the downtown Elkins area that residents can use until the repairs are complete.

“We are trying to get a temporary location downtown, hopefully as close to the library as possible,” Howell said. “We want to be able to allow people to come in somewhere and access the computers, print services and other things like that.

“Unfortunately, our books will have to stay in storage until we can pull them out and evaluate what has been damaged. People will be able to check out books, but they will come from the collection in Beverly. ”

Howell said the Beverly library branch has a collection of 4,000 books that citizens will have access to once that facility is open. He expects the Beverly branch of the ERCPL to have a soft opening on March 1, followed by a grand opening midway through the month.

“Even if it takes a little while to get the facility back up and running, our plan is to put our footprint back in there,” Howell said. “It’s amazing the amount of people who walk to our establishment to utilize our services. We are missing out by not being there.”