WILLMAR -- Offices in the lower level of the 1955 building at Rice Memorial Hospital in Willmar were covered with one to three inches of water in different areas and a few computer pieces were damaged as a result of seepage from a rainstorm early Sunday morning.
The seepage occurred where the 1937 hospital wing had been demolished and removed, said Dale Hustedt, Rice associate administrator.
The demolition was part of the hospital's $50 million renovation project.
Hustedt said the seepage was unexpected.
"It was just an irony that it happened. I think we're at the point right now that even if it happened at this very moment, I'm not sure that the same rain would have had the same effect because our construction project is progressing very quickly,'' he said.
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"The situation has already been taken care of, I believe, just with the normal process of where we're headed with the project. The rain came just at the time when we might have been most vulnerable for something like this to have happened,'' he said.
"A week earlier it wouldn't have occurred and three days later it wouldn't have occurred. The timing just wasn't in our favor for this,'' he said Wednesday.
The problem was discovered at about 3:30 a.m. About 20 staff members were called in at about 5:30 a.m. when the problem appeared to be bigger than what could be handled by the morning crew, he said.
Hustedt commended the employees "for putting in a long day of hard work to get us through this.''
The seepage affected the human resources, scheduling and volunteer services offices and damaged a few pieces of computer equipment that had not been elevated. The event temporarily knocked out the telecommunications equipment that operates the paging system. The overhead system was used until the paging system was restored before noon, he said.
Staff members worked steadily through most of Sunday to remove the water. Drywall on lower wall areas was removed, and areas are being dried and repairs made. Hustedt did not have a dollar estimate of the damage.
"We expect that we'll be back to normal in about two weeks,'' he said.
