"It became clear we needed help and we needed it quickly," said interim UH president David McClain, speaking for the UH administrative team that went into action last Saturday and Sunday and has spent the days since handling one priority after another.

"Our intention is to reoccupy the buildings as quickly as possible."

Under a $1.75 million contract that is expected to reach $5 million in additional expenses, 'BMS CAT' officials estimate they will have the four most heavily flood-damaged buildings at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa campus cleaned and sanitized within 30-45 days. These include Hamilton Library, the Biomedical Sciences building, Sherman Laboratory and Agricultural Sciences.

"From the very first moment of being faced with that incident, we were convinced we needed to safeguard buildings and reoccupy the buildings," said Manoa chancellor Peter Englert. "With the help of BMS CAT, we feel we have everything in place for the library and Biomedical Sciences building to come on line as soon as possible."

Specialized dehumidifying and drying equipment, along with generators to pump cool air into the buildings to counteract humidity and mold, were to begin arriving at the airport last night and are expected on campus and in operation this morning. Some of the equipment and 35 people from the company are coming in from Florida and the Bahamas, where they have been doing hurricane clean-up.

Library materials will be freeze-dried and stored in refrigerated containers so they can be cleaned and restored. There are already four refrigerated containers holding precious and historic maps and other documents that have been salvaged. Where necessary, documents will be flown to BMS CAT headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, for more specialized recovery.

Company senior vice president Tim Draney said the damage at the Manoa campus is on a par with Tropical Storm Allison, which flooded 10,000 homes in Houston in June 2001. "Any time you have that amount of water that came out of the hills and came through the campus and the buildings, you're going to have that kind of damage and that kind of deposits," said Draney.

"Our job is to get in and clean it up and we'll do the fine cleaning that needs to be done so those pieces of equipment are usable again. We'll do what they need us to do to get back into operation again."

Englert said it's also important to get researchers back into their laboratories so research is interrupted as little as possible. The National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation have already postponed the Nov. 1 deadline for new grant applications for UH researchers to give them a few extra days to get new proposals in.

The BMS CAT clean-up will include the electrical and mechanical generating systems in the damaged buildings. Once clean and dry, the power generation systems could work — or be salvageable with more modest repairs rather than complete replacement.

UH administrators said it's too early to estimate total damages to the UH campus, but a state insurance policy with a $25 million flood cap is expected to be used to pay for the damages. The policy comes with a 3 percent deductible for the total amount of damage, but no one yet knows what that deductible will be. The insurance policy will also pay the BMS CAT costs.

Administrators say it's far too soon to begin looking at alternate placement for key generation systems instead of the basements of buildings, but that kind of re-evaluation is expected down the road.

While UH has an emergency response plan, it doesn't get to the detailed level that the campus needed to respond to a flood of this magnitude, say administrators. But when top leaders were alerted by campus security officers Saturday night by 8:30 p.m., they began gathering and were back again early Sunday to strategize, reconvening every few hours to update plans and respond to needs.

One of the first needs was to secure any hazardous or radioactive materials, which was done within the first 24-28 hours, said Englert, a nuclear chemist by training. Research animals were also immediately tended to, and none was lost.