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<br />Appendix B <br />Newsletter INewspaper Articles <br />GREELEY, COLORADO <br />ARTICLE NO.1 <br /> <br />Crews work to save papers at City Hall <br />Story By Perry Swanson <br />Posted on Saturday, July 14 @ 04:21:24 EDT (217 reads) <br /> <br />Workers slogged through at least 6 inches of water in the basement of Greeley City Hall late <br />Friday trying to save drenched historical documents. <br /> <br />The water was more than a foot deep in places. Only the records stored high off the floor were <br />spared. It was unclear exactly how many and what type of records were damaged, City Clerk <br />Betsy Holder said. <br /> <br />The city called in refrigerated trucks to fast-freeze some of the more sensitive documents, Holder <br />said. <br /> <br />"It just gives us some time to thaw and dry them properly," she said. <br /> <br />The documents ranged from those recording property ownership to the city council's legislative <br />history dating to the late 1800s. <br /> <br />Some of the documents were stored in a vault in the basement of City Hall at 1000 10th St. <br />Others were in storage rooms, and some were slated for destruction anyway, Holder said. <br /> <br />It was unclear how the water entered the building, Fire Chief Bill Martin said. It could have been <br />through drains in a utility shed near City Hall, he said. The streets surrounding the building and <br />the City Hall parking lots were still flooded long after other parts of downtown Greeley were <br />mostly drained. <br /> <br />"It overran the storm sewer system," he said. "We haven't had a problem here before, so this is a <br />very centralized and unusual circumstance." <br /> <br />Fire and public works crews dammed part of the parking lot with dirt and used sand bags to <br />block the water inside the building. <br /> <br />The last time water damaged city records was three or four years ago when a water pipe broke in <br />the basement, Holder said. It took six months to recover from that incident, which was far less <br />serious, she said. <br /> <br />But measures taken beforehand to protect the documents, such as putting the most valuable <br />documents on high shelves, largely worked, Holder said, holding a flashlight and wading through <br />the water. <br /> <br />"We're actually in good shape. It doesn't look like it, but we are," she said. <br /> <br />A building inspector will survey the building before Monday to determine whether it is safe for <br />city workers to return to their jobs, Holder said. <br /> <br />· Related story: Deluge swamps streets.,shops <br /> <br />T: \Projects\6844888 _ CWCS _Flood _ Doc_ Rpts\Su b _ 00\6.0 _Proj_ Deliv\Report\Append ix <br />S.doc T: \Projects\6844888 _ CWCS _Flood _ Doc_ Rpts\Su b _ 00\6.0 _Proj_ Deliv\Report\Append ix S.doc <br />