On August 7, 2021, the city of La Crosse experienced 5.59 inches of rainfall, the most the area had seen in almost 140 years. Unfortunately, this record rainfall led to massive flooding in the basement of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse’s Murphy Library and ultimately its indefinite closure on August 11, 2021.
However, despite experiencing various setbacks and delays with repairs and construction, phase one of Murphy Library’s basement is now complete and open to students. The Racquet Press sat down for an interview with Murphy Library Director John Jax to talk about the repair process and the future plans for the basement.
Jax explained that the library’s basement had previously experienced flooding before the major August flood that closed the basement for good. A series of makeshift dams had been set up to try and deal with the flooding, but when La Crosse saw a record amount of rainfall, the main drainage pipe was overwhelmed and the basement flooded completely.
The basement was home to federal and state documents, periodicals, study rooms and a classroom. Jax explained that Murphy Library staff had been moving materials off the basement’s bottom shelves for several years in response to the mild flooding the library had dealt with over the years.
“We were just trying to deal with what we could, the size of the collection…there were close to… 100,000 items,” said Jax. “We got, whenever possible, things off the bottom, and that ended up saving us.”
Within a few days of the flood occurring, UWL began tackling the damage. Jax thanked the maintenance and facilities staff for their quick response and hard work.
Along with the cleaning up of the flooded basement came the removal of materials. Eventually, an outside company was hired, and boxes were stuffed from floor-to-ceiling in empty classrooms in the basement. While Jax and other Murphy Library staff were concerned about potential mold issues, the company ensured that nothing would be damaged. Miraculously, no materials were lost in the flood.
While the repairs to the basement were initially estimated to be completed in the Spring of 2022, Jax said that battles with the insurance company, as well as troubles getting enough labor to finish the project, led to the repair and reorganization process stalling until December 2023.
“It was a debacle. It took us almost a year exactly, thirteen months, to get everything reshelved,” said Jax.
Jax mentioned that with the help of Library Assistant Dirck Nagy, who acted as a sort of project manager and won a University Staff Excellence Award for his efforts, Murphy Library was able to open phase one of the basement on April 14. Phase one of the basement features some study tables, maps, movable stacks, bookshelves, microfiche viewers and more.
As part of the second phase of putting the basement back together, the Tutoring & Learning Center will be relocated from the second floor of Murphy Library to the basement.
“When we started getting schematics and plans for how we were going to put the basement back, the first thing we said [was]…‘Could we help the Learning Center?’” said Jax. “It’s a little disjointed…students get a little confused.”
The goal with relocating the Tutoring & Learning Center is to combine all of the tutoring and learning assistance centers from the second floor into one area. Math & stats, physics, the Writing Center and the Public Speaking Center will eventually all be in one area as opposed to separate spaces like they are currently.
“I was told hopefully, construction [of phase two] can begin in January of ’26…maybe take about 8 to 10 months to complete, so maybe by the fall of 2026 sometime,” said Jax. “Hopefully by the start of school…that’s the plan, get that opened up, and then we’ll take a look at upstairs and getting some of those lost study spaces and converting to rooms.”
Even though phase two of the basement won’t be completed until sometime in 2026, phase one is currently open and available for anyone to use. Murphy Library is open Monday-Thursday 7:30 a.m.-midnight, Friday 7:30 a.m.-7:00 p.m., Saturday 10:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m. and Sunday 11:00 a.m.-midnight.
