By Brian Sanders, The Republic
bsanders@therepublic.com
Cummins Inc. employees and contractors are working around the clock to bring the company's technical center back online by early July.
It likely will be 10 days before the company will release its first offi cial damage estimates for the McKinley Avenue facility and others damaged in the June 7 flood, according to Janet Williams, a spokeswoman for Cummins.
For now, officials only are saying that damages will reach tens of millions of dollars.
The lab and office buildings at the Cummins Technical Center first were accessible to recovery crews on Sunday, according to Sean Milloy, vice president of the engine business. Milloy said the basement levels of both buildings were flooded floor to ceiling, with up to 3 feet of standing water on the first f oors.
On the outside of the lab building, a water line marking the fl odwaters' peak remained on Friday, despite crews' best efforts to erase it.
Milloy said Cummins may leave it and mark it with a plaque to remember the worst flooding in Columbus history.
Throughout last week up to 300 workers labored around the clock, removing debris and damaged equipment, installing replacement or refurbished equipment and running new conduit and wiring.
On Friday, the campus buzzed with activity amid the drone of power generators pumping out 4 megawatts of electricity.
Milloy explained that the flooding had damaged all of the facilities' power sub stations, two of which had been submerged.
Workers were installing new circuit breakers on Friday and expected to bring the first sub station back online by tonight.
Fans and tubes
Fans ran throughout the facility to dry any remaining moisture.
Large tubes ran inside and outside the buildings, pumping in good air and removing the bad.
Milloy said the facility had received good marks on all of its air quality tests.
During a tour of the lab building, Milloy pointed out that the buildings, which stored company publications, reports and microfilm, had flooded.
The room was vacant on Friday as its materials dried in refrigerated truck trailers.
Workers in the office building still were removing some debris and assessing damage in the half-lit and cavernous basement.
Milloy said the area had housed offices and laboratories, but on Friday it was just a series of large empty rooms.
Beneath the lab building, crews were tending to five boilers that provide hot water, heating and humidification for the lab's combustion air system.
Each of the boilers had undergone hydrostatic testing, but much of their guts will need replacing or repair.
Despite the damage that greeted Milloy on Sunday, the facility is making steady progress, which he attributed to Cummins employees' work ethic.
"It was pretty amazing," said Jay Simmons, a Cummins operations manager.
Simmons said for safety reasons he had to turn away many Cummins workers who wanted to help.
Many of those wanting to help had flood-related issues at their homes, according to Simmons.
Several employees were temporarily transferred to other offices to continue their day-to-day work.
Essential equipment and critical projects were shipped to Cummins facilities in Seymour and North Carolina.
"Our goal is to get our folks back to work," Milloy said.
He anticipated that the plant would be running on its own power by July 3 or 4 with many employees returning to their regular jobs by July 7.