PLAMONDON - The next chapter for the Plamondon public library will be one about rebuilding.
The community library, housed inside the Ecole Plamondon School, saw extensive damage during an April 18 flood that swept through the building.
The flood, caused by a suspected water main break, sent waves of water – in some cases several feet deep – racing through classrooms and hallways of the school. Cost estimates are already expected to top the $2.5 million mark, and that doesn't include repairs and re-stocking of the library.
Lac La Biche County councillor Colette Borgun is a member of the Lac La Biche County Library Board and says staff continue to sort through mountains of books, trying to salvage what they can. It's a bit of a horror story, says Borgun.
"The biggest job right now for our library is they hauled in over 200 bins of books from Ecole Plamondon School," she said, explaining that books came from the library itself and from inside student lockers and classrooms.
Each bin contains hundreds books, and the work to process the bins is slow and labourous.
"They are going between six and seven bins per day and there is way more damage than they thought at first," said Borgun. "So it’s going to be a huge costs, just for the books"
Northern Lights School Division officials say they expect to re-open the school in time for the 2024-25 school year start in September. It is not know if the Plamondon library will have the same timeframe for re-opening.
