By Tom Morphet
Public radio station employees spread 1,000 or more record albums on
tables, floors, theater seats and the stage of the Chilkat Center to dry after a burst
sprinkler-system pipe at KHNS doused as much as one-third of the station’s
10,500-record library on the morning of Dec. 5.
Water also bulged and collapsed sheetrock and damaged wall fixtures and
other parts of the building. Ten fans – including four giant, industrial ones loaned
by Dawson Construction – were positioned around the building to dry out soaked
carpets and floors.
Damage to the building owned by the Haines Borough will be considerably
less than the municipality’s $25,000 insurance deductible, said borough manager
Robert Venables.
Venables credited a quick response by station employees at holding
damage to a minimum. "If it had happened in the middle of the night, it could have
been catastrophic."
Operations assistant Amelia Nash was taking a message in the
station’s main studio room on the building’s second floor at about 10:30 a.m.
when she felt her boots "squooshing around" on the carpet. "There was a
lake under my feet in a matter of seconds."
Reporter John Hunt followed the sound of running water to a west
passageway that serves as the station’s record library, where a torrent of water was
spraying into folk, soul, blues and easy listening sections.
The water main to the building was closed in minutes, but water flooded
the light booth adjoining the office to ankle-depth and collapsed a piece of sheetrock on
the west wing of the auditorium.
The leak was tracked to a bleeder valve used to drain condensation from
the system that is pressurized by air. The borough routinely checks such valves, but this
one was obscured by library shelving and may have been overlooked, resulting in a water
buildup.
That water froze during last week’s cold snap, breaking the pipe
and charging the system with water. Water did not spray into other sections of the
building because sprinkler heads are activated by intense heat.
Station employees had been concerned about pipes freezing after
temperatures dropped Dec. 2, but were concentrating on historic trouble spots. Doors were
left open and checks were being made of the kitchen and restrooms on the building’s
north side that was whipped by frigid winds.
Borough workers repositioned the valve that caused the flooding to a
more prominent spot and manager Venables said a new position aimed at increasing borough
building maintenance should eliminate such damage in the future. "It’s something
we’ll be able to avoid after he catches up."
Longtime former building manager Lee Heinmiller said the center’s
sprinkler system has failed four or five times in the past 25 years and is especially
vulnerable during extreme cold weather. He was concerned that an alarm triggered by water
rushing into the system didn’t sound and said an auto-dialer also should be in place
to notify police when the system begins charging.
Station employees said they vacuumed up about 20 gallons of water, and
put trash cans to catch leaks in the building lobby where sheetrock bulged. They then took
the soaked albums and spread them out in dry areas throughout the building, including
hallways and stairs.
"Some records may not survive very well, but nothing was
ruined," said music director Steve Scarrott. "We’re really, in a way,
fortunate to have this big building and all this space to lay the albums out. It’s
not like we could lay them out in the sun."
The flood also gave staffers a peek at albums they previously
hadn’t seen. "The best thing is we found all kinds of stuff we never knew we
had. We also found albums that had been misfiled," Scarrott said. Among the
rediscovered treasures was "Alta Marie," a 1960s album by guitarist Richard Dick
of Skagway including the tunes "In the Valley of the Wind" and "Come Home
to Skagway Valley."
A favorite of the cleanup efforts was the original radio broadcast of
"Sergeant Preston of the Yukon," subtitled, "Relive the Challenge of the
Frozen North."
Though considered antiques by the younger generation, albums make up
about 25 percent of songs played daily on KHNS. "A lot of them aren’t available
on CD, so if you lose it, it’s gone," Scarrott said.
Donations account for hundreds of albums that arrive at the station
each year and help grow the station’s record library. Sixteen Jimmy Buffet albums and
ones by Rod Stewart’s early band "Faces" were donated recently. Duplicates
are forwarded to the station’s studio in Skagway.
