Crews clean up flooded Buck O’Neil Research and Education Center after vandals strike

Cleanup crews worked Saturday to dry out the flooded Buck O'Neil Research and Education Center in the former Paseo YMCA building in Kansas City.

Scores of electric fans and dehumidifiers dotted every room on the first floor and in the basement of the historic building where Negro Leagues Baseball team owners formed the Negro National League in 1920.

Power came from large portable generators parked along The Paseo. The flooded structure's power was cut off for safety reasons.

Police said vandals broke into the center Friday and cut a water pipe on the second floor.

Restaurateur Ollie Gates, instrumental in the building's renovation, told KSHB that the incident damaged more than the building.

"This is more than just the Buck O’Neil building or the Paseo YMCA. It’s the building that’s the history of black people in Kansas City," Gates told the station. "It did enough damage to kind of hurt your soul that somebody would be that negligent or that thoughtless that they would go in and do something like that."

The center emerged from the former YMCA building, with its gymnasium turned into a ballroom with an elaborate staircase suited to events such as the Hat Parade, part of the Derby Day for Education.

Water problems also struck Kansas City's Negro Leagues Baseball Museum later Friday. Museum President Bob Kendrick said on Twitter that he learned about the museum's burst water-fountain pipe just after returning from the O'Neil building mess.

Happily, the water did no real damage, Kendrick said in a later post.

This story was originally published June 23, 2018 at 3:04 PM with the headline "Crews clean up flooded Buck O’Neil Research and Education Center after vandals strike."