Metro

What A Mess!

Federation
HQ building
sustains water
damage from
storms.

Damage in the conference

suite

Above: The Tamarack

Camps (formerly Fresh Air

Society) suite sustained

extensive damage.

Right: Rubber roofing tore

around this drain sending

Above: Randy LaCompte

water into the building.

Left: Donna Pelon, assistant

to the director of Tamarack

Camps, retrieves something

from the office.

Keri Guten Cohen

Story Development Editor

I

t was not a peaceful Shabbat at the
Max M. Fisher Federation Building in
Bloomfield Township. Early Saturday
afternoon, a maintenance supervisor
came in to tend to an alarm from a piece
of equipment when he noticed water else-
where in the building.
Severe weather had caused tears in
the rubber roof around a water drain
on the north side of the building, allow-
ing in water that damaged the Tamarack
Camps (formerly Fresh Air Society) suite
on the third floor, the Financial Resource
Development (Annual Campaign) suite on
the second floor and the Jewish Federation
of Metropolitan Detroit's conference suite
on the first floor.
Water also leaked down to the base-
ment-level garage and caused minimal
damage to other offices upstairs, including

the Leonard N. Simons Jewish Community
Archives. No archival material was lost.
Though there was some damage to indi-
vidual computers, Federation's computer
server was secure and unharmed.
On Monday, staffers in shorts and
T-shirts packed their files in boxes and
removed personal photos and artwork
from the walls — all amid the wreckage.
Missing ceiling tiles revealed ductwork
and steel; wallpaper was peeling from
walls; filing cabinets were pulled away
from wet walls and up on wood blocks,
creating maze-like trails through offices;
and everywhere floor fans were blowing to
dry carpeting.
In the conference suite, where the smell
was worst, mostly from wet carpets, the late
philanthropist Max M. Fisher smiled confi-
dently from a color portrait on the wall as if
he knew this was only a temporary setback.
"I tend to look at things positively," said
Donna Pelon, assistant to Jonah Geller,

Tamarack Camps director. She was toting
a box of bandanas around with her on the
third floor to take back to camp. "It's early
spring cleaning."
Camp ends this week and the 18
Tamarack Camps workers now in
Ortonville will come back to the
Bloomfield Township office on Monday.
They will be relocated to one of two empty
suites on the south side of the building.
Twenty-seven Federation workers
— mostly from the damaged Campaign
office — will occupy the other suite, said
Randy LaCompte, director of property
management for Federation and its finan-
cial arm, the United Jewish Foundation of
Metropolitan Detroit.
"It might be a little crowded, but we've
chosen to keep the team together," he said.
"The staff has been extremely coopera-
tive and really rallied together. It's the
Federation spirit we have."
Though repairs may take one to three

months, people were expected to be back
to work at makeshift desks this week.
"This will not slow down the
Campaign," said Andrew Echt, Federation's
chief financial resource development offi-
cer."We may be slow for a few days, but
we'll be back up and running."
Federation is covered by an umbrella
insurance policy that applies to all United
Jewish Foundation properties, La Compte
said. The fire last year at Hechtman
Apartments in West Bloomfield fell under
that coverage as well.
La Compte said the cost of the damage
is estimated preliminarily to be between
$750,000 to $1 million. He also said the
deductible is $5,000 and that the insur-
ance includes full replacement coverage.
To ensure safety, he said drywall will come
down and appropriate testing will be done
for mold or other contaminants.
"The biggest thing:' he said, "is the hor-
rible inconvenience." O

AU g us

2009

11