East Coast Libraries Face Severe Flood Damage After Hurricane Irene

Posted on September 2, 2011

School Library Journal has an excellent news roundup about all the damage libraries on the East Coast sustained as a result of flooding from Hurricane Irene. Vermont, New York and New Jersey libraries all got hit. Some libraries emerged relatively unscathed; others lost pretty much their entire collections.

Vermont experienced the worst natural disaster since 1927. Many towns are cut off from the rest of the state: CNN reported that the National Guard is having to do food and water drops by helicopter because there simply are no roads at all in many places. They were destroyed by flooding. Martha Reid, the Vermont state librarian, said they reached a number of librarians at home but none of them could get into work. She tried to sound optimistic, but it sounds like it's a grim situation.

New York, North Carolina and New Jersey are still assessing the damage: there are power outages in upstate New York and parts of New Jersey that make reaching people difficult. One bright spot in the news: North Carolina State Librarian Mary Boone said that most of the state's libraries escaped major damage.