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Courthouse basement floods; county outlines recovery and records plan
Summary
Five feet of water entered the courthouse basement after a frozen pipe; staff praised buildings-and-grounds crews for emergency response, reported a courthouse improvement grant award, and outlined a records-preservation matrix and drying operations.
County staff told commissioners on Feb. 3 that a frozen pipe caused four to five feet of water to flood the courthouse basement. Staff credited buildings-and-grounds crews with immediate response and praised a staff member for devising a solution that avoided pumping water outdoors.
County staff said the flood forced rapid action to preserve records and that the courthouse improvement grant had been approved to support recovery. Court staff said more recent files are primarily preserved in the case-management system while older files remain physical; they described a matrix to decide which physical records must be preserved and said the county would use space in the adjacent old jail to set up drying racks and prioritize recovery work over the coming weeks.
Commissioners discussed whether sensors or water-pressure monitoring could have provided earlier warning; staff noted the basement lacks internet/Wi‑Fi and that the absence of utilities complicates automated alerts, but committed to follow up on potential monitoring and water-pressure triggers with the buildings crew.
Separately, staff reported three prairie-dog grant awards for road or flood projects (Mandeville Avenue; County 17 with the city of Thompson; County Road 5 near Manville) and advised caution on proceeding with preliminary engineering until state grant buckets are confirmed.
