By Brent Martin
St. Joseph Post
Clean up continues at the Buchanan County Courthouse after the Independence Day storm in St. Joseph blew off temporary roofing and damaged the courtroom on its northeast corner.
Buchanan County Presiding Commissioner Scott Nelson recalls going into the courtroom and offices of Presiding Judge Kate Schaefer the day after the storm.
“Looked in there and it was a mess,” Nelson tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “Of course, the water knocked down the sheetrock and it knocked down the drop ceiling and it just came, insulation and all.”
Ambrozi Contracting, which has the $1.2 million contract to repair the courthouse roof and dome, is doing the repair work. Judge Schaefer has been using other courtrooms in the meantime.
Nelson says the July 4th storm tore through temporary roofing in the northeast part of the courthouse, sending water into the courtroom and office of Judge Schaefer.
“It was a mess, it just really was,” Nelson says. “We had asbestos tests and things like that and then, Monday, we had air-quality testing in the courthouse.”
Repair of the courthouse roof continues in downtown St. Joseph.
Nelson says before work on the dome begins, a massive set of scaffolding must be erected from the bottom up.
“If they just put scaffolding up on the third or fourth floor, around the dome or inside, wherever they’re going to put it, it would just collapse the floor,” according to Nelson. “So they have to support it in the basement and continue to support it on up. So that will be starting pretty soon.”