Saturday, January 23, 1999
County's new building soaked from inside leak
By David Crawford
Staff Writer
One of the county's recent building purchases has suffered water damage.
On Thursday, a routine reading of the water meter resulted in the discovery that a water pipe in the building had burst and an estimated 98,000 gallons had found its way throughout the National City Bank building at South Washington and East Market streets.
County Administrator Robert Anderson said there was water damage to all three floors of the building. In the basement and first floor of the building, the carpet and ceiling tiles received the most water damage. On the second floor, there was limited damage to ceiling tiles. There was also about an inch of standing water in the basement.
''Maybe the only good thing about this is that most of the damaged items are things we would have removed anyway as part of our renovation,'' Anderson said.
On Friday, the whole county maintenance department along with prisoners from the Seneca County Jail began to remove damaged ceiling tiles and wallpaper.
Anderson said, ''I went over there this afternoon and they had removed most of the damaged carpet and tiles. They've done an amazing job.''
The county has concentrated on removing the damaged materials, and then will begin the search for the damaged pipe. Until then, they have turned off the water and power to the building.
Anderson said experts have been examining the building to make sure that there is no structrual damage.
Assistant County Administrator Michelle Niedermier said county crews had been in and out of the building through December planning the renovation into county offices. Since then, most of the renovation work has been confined to blueprints and planning the renovation in the commissioner's offices.
Sheriff H. Weldin Neff said, at the county's request, he granted permission for the jail work crew to continue working at the building during the weekend. He said he also gave special permission for those prisoners to have visitation Sunday evening so they could continue working.