Ten Month Difference

After the tornado of 2 March 2007, it appeared the library had come through pretty good. Yes, we had debris around. Our dumpster cover was destroyed - other than that we were just on the edge of a major disaster area. We were actually okay. Soon, however, as we looked closer at our building we noticed cracks in the walls. All of them seemed to be in the front of the building. Engineers were brought in who told us there was no danger.

A little later, the cracks appeared to be getting bigger. Indeed, one crack eventually got so big we could see through it. Engineers came back and decided the library would have to be repaired. The front of the building and about twenty feet down each side would have to be completely taken off and rebuilt. We learned we would have to move everything out of the library into a new place.

As you know, we moved into the old Manhattan Shirt Factory Building on Tripp Street in Americus. What was left of Lake Blackshear was an empty building about to become a construction site. A few days before we moved everything out our Director Anne Isbell thought it would be a good idea to photograph everything so we could remember where things went for when we moved back. So, on 7 January 2008 I walked around the inside of Lake Blackshear and took pictures.

Below are many of the photos I took that day. These photos are the Before photos - meaning before the move. They are the photos to the left. To the right are photos taken 4 November 2008 (yesterday). These are the Later photos meaning they were taken later. When we get moved back in we will take a third set and compare all three.

I hope you enjoy just looking at things before we moved and how things look right now. I also hope you will notice the brightness of the new paint. The photos are grouped two at a time to compare.