Borough finds offices all wet

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough is playing cleanup this week after a sprinkler system in its main building on East Dahlia Avenue froze Saturday, hosing down the third-floor offices.

“It was a mess,” said Keith Rountree, the Borough’s director of public works, of the scene he discovered upon his arrival Saturday night. “Dead plants and everything.”

He said high winds that day had pulled open a window left unlatched in one of the Borough clerk’s offices. Cold air flowed into the space above the ceiling tiles, traveled to above Borough manager John Duffy’s office and froze a sprinkler head. A second head froze just outside Duffy’s office.

The sprinklers opened up, drenching the Borough’s administration offices, Rountree said. Desks, chairs, computers, ceiling tiles — all were waterlogged. And, as if that wasn’t enough, a lot of the ceiling tiles filled up with water then fell to the floor — and onto desks and furniture.

Borough spokeswoman Patty Sullivan said she hadn’t been back to the building Monday, her day off, but, “I heard I had an inch of water on my keyboard.”

The water then flowed down a level into the Borough’s finance department and eventually into a conference room on the lowest level, Rountree said.

For now, most staff members from the affected areas are camping out in other parts of the building, Rountree said. Duffy and assistant borough manager Marian Romano are in the Land Management Department’s conference room. Some finance folks have moved in with the assessors.

Others are borrowing space in borough fire stations 6-5 on Seward Meridian Parkway and 6-1 in downtown Wasilla.

Monday, the Borough Assembly, which had been set to interview candidates for the vacant Borough clerk’s position, moved that meeting to the city of Palmer’s assembly chambers just up the road.

Rountree said that was mainly due to noise outside the assembly chambers. Dehumidifiers and fans were working to dry out nearby rooms. The chambers, he said, escaped unscathed.

Borough staff can expect to be back in their offices by Friday, Rountree said. “We’re pretty confident we can have people back in at that point.”

But the building won’t be back to normal until the ceilings can be repaired, which he expects will happen next week. Late Monday afternoon, crews were shampooing the carpets in the building’s highest floor and Rountree said he expected they would be working their way down.

Rountree said damages will be tallied up for a claim the Borough will make with its insurance company.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.