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August 1, 2008

A New Gas Crisis Strikes NSLS Delivery

On Tuesday, July 29th, interlibrary loan materials travelled a little farther than they would have on any other day. 

 Just before the time our vans normally start returning to NSLS with their daily load of materials, a contractor working near the new Wheeling Village Hall construction site ruptured an 8-inch natural gas line along Dundee Road.  Emergency personnel immediately closed down all traffic on Dundee for several blocks in each direction, leaving our drivers no way to get back to the garage.  In spite of several pleas to let our vans through from the side away from the damaged gas line, the Wheeling Police Department wouldn’t budge.  Fire personnel at the scene informed us it would be shut down for as much as 5 or 6 hours. 

 A back-up plan was quickly pulled together, and each driver was called and redirected to find their way to the parking lot of the elementary school across the creek that runs behind the NSLS building.  As each driver arrived, we unloaded the vans and transferred the book bags into large rolling tubs, and manually moved them over the footbridge, across our parking lot and down the driveway to the garage.  While drivers Ken, Matt, Alec and Saul worked out in the 95 degree heat of the parking lot to transfer bags between vans and into the rolling tubs, Larry, Don and our new temporary employee, Alex, shuttled the large tubs back and forth to our sorting area in the building.  Tuesday being our heaviest volume day, we estimate that the trips with the tubs equaled at least 2 miles of walking between them.

 Meanwhile, our front office staff jumped into action and took over the sorting operations inside.  At least a dozen staff members took turns sorting the materials as we brought the bags in.  Thanks to their help, what we expected to be an 11 hour day for the drivers turned out to be only about half an hour longer that a normal Tuesday.  According to Ken, who has been a driver for NSLS for well over 30 years, “We’ve never had to do anything like that before.  This was a first.” 

 The road was reopened to traffic sometime around 3:00 so we could get the fully loaded vans safely tucked away in the garage for the night.   

posted by Don at 1:42 pm | Comments (0)

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