Library Repair Could Hit $20 Million

"I see absolutely no value in Congress stepping into our affairs," Evans said. "It's an issue we can handle and we will handle, and I do not appreciate the congressman grandstanding at our expense."

Yesterday's walk-through by officials provided a stark look at what Georgetown residents lost this week. The westernmost upstairs room, one of two housing the children's collection, is a sodden, blackened shell open to the sky. Exposed are steel beams, felled and twisted by the intense heat.

Amazingly, despite a sagging, dripping ceiling, some books in the middle room are unscathed. Several young-adult series on shelves against a wall appear ready for checkout. "It could have been a lot worse," a hard-hatted Fenty said.

Interim arrangements are being made all around. The fire department's Engine 5 on Dent Place plans to relocate two support trucks to allow for a temporary reading room. Georgetown University has invited the community into its library. Cooper promised to resume children's programs and station a bookmobile in the neighborhood within weeks.

Some items of the Peabody Collection are beyond repair, including oil paintings that apparently were soaked. "They look like etchings on canvas now," Cooper said.

The collection will be sent to several locations for repair, including the Smithsonian Institution, which has taken possession of census volumes and other rare books. Much material will head to Texas in a white freezer truck. Once there, the technical division of Belfor Property Restoration will begin a process of thawing, washing, reshaping and ultimately freeze-drying the records and other items.

From Fort Worth, Kirk Lively, Belfor's director of technical services, explained how water in a document "goes directly from ice to vapor without passing through the liquid phase." And, in so doing, the document is saved -- from mold, from deterioration, from ruin.

Not all of the collection will require major work. Some metal filing cabinets in the Peabody Room protected their contents completely. "In some cases [the material] was dry," Cooper said before the tour. In others, "sopping wet."

On the sidewalk outside the library sat dozens of plastic-lined boxes of records, labeled and taped and ready for loading in the 53-foot "Thermo King" truck. By Monday, the truck should be in Texas.

"I am much more optimistic," Cooper declared.

Staff writers Keith L. Alexander, Allison Klein and David Nakamura contributed to this report.