The severe storm on March 14 which produced an EF-1 tornado that traveled through Monroe County led to an incident at the Rock City cave business complex in Valmeyer – mainly involving the National Personnel Records Center.

Joe Koppeis, owner of Admiral Parkway Development which manages Rock City, told the Republic-Times this week that the storm damaged a sprinkler system at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration storage center, leading to several boxes of records being soaked.

He said the records are currently being dried.

The National Archives and Records Administration opened its National Personnel Records Center annex facility in Rock City on Oct. 24, 2008. The approximately 400,000 square foot building has a total storage capacity of nearly two million cubic feet of records. The building primarily houses temporary records —mostly military medical treatment records and records for civilian federal personnel who retired after 1973.

Koppeis also gave an update on a power outage which threatened more than $8 million of foodstuffs kept at Rock City.

While Monroe County Public Safety Director Kevin Scheibe had offered use of a county-owned generator, Koppeis said Blue Line Food Service Distribution – owners of the Little Caesar’s Pizza Distribution Center operation at Rock City – brought in two “truck trailer” generators to provide electricity to the freezers.

Koppeis said power was restored to Rock City about 9:50 p.m. March 17, but the generators remained in use until Tuesday morning.

He added the highest temperature in the freezers was 10 degrees, which was still well below freezing.

“The good thing is that once it gets cold, the rocks hold the temperatures very well,” Koppeis said, adding, “It was a heck of a storm.”