Recovery Spotlight

by Stefanie Powers

In the aftermath of Hurricanes Laura and Delta, Calcasieu Parish Public Library (CPPL) Director Marjorie Harrison was faced with a daunting task: securing, assessing damages and then overseeing the repair of the 17 facilities in the library system.“We began by communicating with library and parish staff and gathered photos,” Harrison explains. “We started visiting all the facilities and conducted an initial assessment of the buildings and collections.”

Carnegie Memorial Library in downtown Lake Charles came first. “The server is located there, and a genealogy and historical collection is also housed in the Carnegie building,” she says. “We took steps to ensure the safety of the server and began mitigating damage to the small collection of rare and unique materials.”

Next, they secured generators and dehumidifiers for all the buildings. They kept air conditioning on where possible to reduce humidity levels and help preserve the collections. They boarded up windows and had tarps placed on roofs.

A survey of IT equipment and technology at all branches came next. They checked computers, copiers, printers, and wi-fi and Internet connections. “We assessed the capability of providing library services to determine what services we could provide and where,” Harrison explains.

From there, collection services, IT, programming, training, and facilities staff were all reassigned to other locations, as the facilities that housed these employees were destroyed. Salvageable items were moved to storage containers. The staff assessed all library materials and removed over 5,000 damaged items from the collection: mostly books, but also magazines, books on CD, DVDs, music CDs, paperbacks, games, and launchpads. This is a small percentage considering CPPL had nearly 300,000 items in its collection in August 2020.

Due to facility damage, library collections were removed from the Epps (North Lake Charles) and Fontenot (Vinton) branches. The entire Fontenot collection was reassigned to other branches to fill in gaps. All branches except Fontenot and Epps were reopened about a month after Hurricane Laura. The date was October 7, 2020, unfortunately.

“That very day, the Parish called a mandatory evacuation for Hurricane Delta and branches closed at 5:00 p.m. to evacuate,” Harrison recalls. “The Moss Bluff branch received extensive damage in Delta and was added to the list of closed branches. Other branches reopened on October 19.”

The Outreach department, branch staff and IT quickly put together a plan to provide weekly pop-up library service in the North Lake Charles, Vinton, and Moss Bluff communities. The American Library Association (ALA) heard about their popup libraries and donated $20,000 towards service in the Epps, Vinton, and Moss Bluff communities. “With this donation, we were able to acquire and set-up portable buildings and provide library service in these areas, including wi-fi and Internet access, computer use, print, copy, and FAX services, e-resources, children’s books, and popular reading materials,” Harrison adds. The three damaged libraries reopened in January 2021.

Harrison says that every library facility in the system was damaged in some way; two nonbranch facilities, extensively. “The roof was torn off the library’s warehouse and all its contents were destroyed. Epps Annex, which housed IT, training, and programming staff, received major damage and will be demolished.”

Insurance and FEMA are helping CPPL get back on its feet, along with the ALA donation, a LEH Emergency Grant and a donation from the FINRA Foundation. Before the storms, CPPL was renovating three Capital One bank buildings for service expansion in Vinton, DeQuincy, and Iowa. Progress was stalled following the hurricanes, of course, but they expect the new Vinton branch will open this fall. The DeQuincy branch will move to their new nearby location around December 2022. The new Iowa Branch is expected to reopen in spring 2023.

Progress has been slow, but Harrison understands that repairs and renovations to 17 facilities following two hurricanes take time. Many long-range plans were placed on hold during the pandemic and immediately following the hurricanes. “On the other hand, we moved some projects to the forefront during this time, such as virtual programming, curbside service, satellite, and pop-up library service. Overall, we accomplished quite a lot considering our many constraints.”

Warehouse damage

Epps Memorial Branch