AUBURN – Repairs to the heating system in the ceiling above the Auburn Post Office’s downtown branch Tuesday morning resulted in a brief flood and a 90-minute delay for post office customers.
“It was coming down like rain when I first got here,” said Customer Service Supervisor Eric Parmenter.
Postmaster Mike Foster said crews from the Thayer Corp. were installing a new heat pump in the ceiling over the post office lobby in Great Falls Plaza at about 8:30 a.m. Thursday. The repairs caused a two-inch PVC plastic pipe to burst in the ceiling over the lobby and the back-office sorting area, causing a cascade of water.
“We just couldn’t get it turned off fast enough,” Foster said. The water covered the floor in the sorting area and around the post office boxes and closed the office for about 90 minutes.
Foster said a couple of boxes and newspapers got wet in the flood, but post office staffers managed to keep the water away from most of the mail.
Auburn Fire crews responded to help turn off the water and contain the inch-deep flood, and Foster said their help was invaluable.
Postal workers had to stop sorting mail while fire and cleanup crews contained the water, and postal patrons were kept away from their boxes until about 10 a.m. The office doesn’t handle mail bound for delivery routes, so Foster said the delay only affected downtown customers.
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