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WILKES-BARRE — A faulty sprinkler head at the Thomas C. Thomas Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre caused water to rain down on Luzerne County government records housed in the building Thursday evening, according to county officials and a building representative.
The situation was discovered by two county District Attorney’s Office employees shortly before 5 p.m.
The county has been in the process of moving records out of the leased Union Street property into a new county-owned storage facility in Hanover Township. That move, which began in July, was prompted by a state archive expert’s warnings years ago that the Thomas facility was deemed insufficient for record storage due to temperature extremes, lack of security, leaks and fire hazards.
The Wilkes-Barre Fire Department arrived and quickly turned off water service to the building, but not before numerous boxes of District Attorneys Office records were soaked.
District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis was at the scene and said she would assess the damage.
County Administrative Services Division Head David Parsnik said the county called in an independent record consultant to document the record damage for insurance purposes and to develop a plan to salvage water-logged paper.
Building owner Thomas C. Thomas said the sprinkler system was in “great shape” and inspected quarterly.
He held a tiny defective sprinkler that his plumbers identified as the cause of the leak that started on the fourth floor above a cage holding juvenile probation records. Officials had initially indicated the leak stemmed from a cracked pipe, but Thomas said plumbers found no problems with the pipes.
The county pays $103,104 annually to rent space at his building, records show. Most of the county papers kept there must be retained by state law.
“Nobody ever would have expected it,” Thomas said, shaking his head as he surveyed the water damage.
Thomas said his family purchased the former furniture warehouse building in the mid-1980s and renovated it for tenants needing storage. He stressed he has insurance coverage and said he plans to repair damage and market the three floors of space to new tenants after the county vacates the structure.
Some of the juvenile records were in water-damaged cardboard boxes.
Most of the prothonotary records on the third floor already were moved to the new storage building, Parsnik said.
At least one 1952 continuance docket book on the third floor was saturated, but it appeared others were protected by shelving.
The district attorney’s records on the second floor sustained heavy damage because water from above pooled and then showered onto the records, Parsnik said. Water also splashed onto thick docket books.
City firefighters draped tarp over some district attorney records to prevent further damage from lingering drips after water service was cut off.
