Coffee pot malfunction snowballs into town hall disaster

Nov. 22--A coffee pot malfunction that flooded Waynesville's historic town hall this summer left a wake of destruction so severe that town offices will be forced to relocate for the next six months while the building is put back together again.

A hose feeding the coffee pot ruptured over a weekend, raining hundreds of gallons of water through the building before it was discovered the next day. The flooding not only ruined the floors throughout the building, but seeped through to the basement storage vaults, destroying mountains of old town files.

The water damage was only the beginning, however.

"That was the least of our problems," Town Manager Rob Hites said.

Once the tear-out of soggy flooring began, crews encountered old asbestos tiles and lead paint.

"Once you disturb it, you have to remove it," Assistant Town Manager Amie Owens said.

The century-old building is part of the Main Street National Historic District. Originally constructed in 1917 as the Waynesville post office, it's now known as the Municipal Building and houses town administrative offices.

The seeping water leached asbestos from the tile into multiple layers of flooring from over the years, which all had to come up.

"Carpet, tile, more tile, hardwood, subfloor, concrete," Hites said. "They had to hammer it all out because asbestos got into all of it."

Five months after the nightmare began, town employees are preparing to move into temporary digs across town while the hazard abatement and renovations are completed. The town will lease a section of the old Dayco Union Hall across from Walmart on South Main Street, which is owned by Haywood Community College.

Unpleasant surprise

The flooding was first discovered by Assistant Town Manager Amie Owens, who came in one Sunday in July to catch up on work. When she first stepped through the backdoor onto soggy carpet, she thought the roof must be leaking again.

But she was soon hit by the sound of gushing water drifting through the building. She rushed toward the break room and found water spraying wildly through the air.

"I opened the doors under the sink and turned the water off but it still kept going," said Owens, who was getting soaked at this point.

A worker from the town water department soon showed up, and they discovered the culprit: the hose feeding the coffee pot had ruptured. It had its own shut off valve hidden behind a mini-fridge.

Once that was stopped, Owens began surveying the damage. Water had radiated throughout the building, covering most of the first floor, leaving only a couple of offices untouched.

Things got worse from there as Owens headed downstairs into the basement, where the town's old files are stored. Water percolated through the floor like a sieve and created a rain storm in the basement below.

"We had two inches of water in the basement," Owens said.

Filing cabinets and file shelves were soaked. Towers of boxes stacked directly on the floor had toppled over and spilled files everywhere, since the boxes on the bottom had collapsed after becoming saturated.

It's unclear how long the leaking hose ran unchecked that weekend. All was well Saturday morning when cleaning crews left the building. But by the time Owens set foot in the building around 11 a.m. Sunday -- just over 24 hours later -- the damage had been done.

Apparently, the coffee pot hose was squirting out 90 gallons an hour.

The coffee pot didn't belong to the town, but was serviced by a coffee pot company. It is unclear whether the town's insurance company will go after the coffee pot company for culpability.

Work to be done

Luckily, the town's insurance will cover most of the work, at least the tear-out and build-back of what was there before.

"The insurance company will pay for putting it back the way it was. The new stuff the town will pay for," Hites said.

With the building torn-up, it made sense to do a few extra renovations to fix long-standing deficits.

One of the new additions will be an ADA bathroom. The old bathroom, which had to be totally torn out, was barely big enough to turn around in.

"The silver lining for us is the municipal building has never had an ADA compliant restroom," Hites said. "Now that we are in a rehab situation, we had to restore this bathroom to an ADA compliant bathroom."

The new bathroom will take up space previously used as break-room. So the renovations will also include putting in a new food serving area and sink. The old council chambers in the Municipal Building are used for multiple meetings any given month, from town committee meetings to employee trainings, requiring a serving area for sandwich trays and the like.

Hites also hopes to highlight some of the historic elements of the building as part of the renovations, including the marble-floor entryway -- one of the few flooring areas that didn't have to get torn up.

"We are going to use a very fine diamond grinder to restore the terrazzo and recoat it to bring it back up its luster," Hites said.

During the initial tear-out and first round of asbestos remediation, employees remained in sealed off sections of the building that hadn't been affected by the flooding.

That was a challenge for Town Clerk Eddie Ward, who typically staffed the front reception desk. She fields a steady stream of public inquiries daily, from people wondering where to pay their taxes or how to get water turned on.

"We have a lot of people who come in for directions or just want to look at the building," Ward said.

But during the tear-out, they were greeted by orange traffic cones and caution tape strung about the lobby. Ward, who had moved into the mayor's office in the back of the building, would dash to the front every time she heard the door open.

Starting in December, the building will be closed to the public completely while the final round of asbestos remediation is completed and the renovations and repairs are made. The work is projected to take about six months.

The town's portion of the cost for the new elements of not covered by insurance is not yet known as the work is still out to bid.

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