Wayne Allen

PDT Staff Writer

At the Thursday meeting of the Scioto County Commissioners, Chairman Mike Crabtree said the county’s insurance would be paying for the flood damages that occurred earlier this week.

The snow and heavy rains on Monday and a clogged downspout on the roof of the Scioto County Courthouse contributed to the flooding of Fourth District Court of Appeals Judge Matt McFarland’s third floor office.

As a result of the flood and damage, McFarland sent his staff to work from home while he and others have gone through the office trying to preserve what they can while crews work to repair the damage. He and his staff have setup a temporary office in the courthouse annex.

On Tuesday, McFarland attended the commissioner’s meeting looking for answers.

“The only thing I can tell you is that the insurance company has taken a look at the upstairs court and ServePro has been in there cleaning it out trying to mitigate any issues,” Crabtree said. “There is going to be someone coming in Friday to not only assess the problem, but give us a professional opinion on what caused the problem.”

He said that someone is Mike Asabrook, a building inspector.

When asked if the restoration work would be put toward the county’s insurance Crabtree said, “We deal with CORSA (County Risk Sharing Authority), I talked to C.B. Herman (of Portsmouth Insurance) this morning and they are going to take care of it. If there is going to be any counter claims, they will work out the details.”

Crabtree said he did not know how far along they were in that process. He said this has also slowed the work of Five Star Roofing and the efforts to replace the roof of the courthouse.

“It’s been slowed down some because of the weather. We’ve had a few problems but otherwise it’s going real good and I think they’ll finish up in a couple of weeks,” Crabtree said.

Crabtree said he did not know if there had been a change in policy for crews not to bring pop bottle on the roof during construction.

“My advise to anyone would be, if they are going to be eating or drinking, they can do that inside the courthouse and put your cans and trash in a trash can,” Crabtree said. “What happened was unfortunate, we are all disappointed in that. We’ve had some similar problems in the past and that was when we were doing nothing about the roof problem. Everything that has been done so far has nothing to do with the actual roof.”

Crabtree could not answer who was at blame for McFarland’s office being flooded.

“I’m not qualified to tell you that,” Crabtree said. “I’ve got my opinions but like I said before opinions are not reality.”

He said it’s to early to know the monetary value of the needed repairs.

“In talking with C.B., he told me they don’t need a dollar amount. What they need is a scope of work that has to be done, they will work out the dollar amount between them and the contractor,” Crabtree said.

He said the goal of all of the restoration work would be to fix the problems that caused the flooding in the first place.

“We want to get the office fixed and make sure its suitable to his needs and go from there,” Crabtree said. “I can’t speak for Judge McFarland, I know he has his thoughts and ideas when he’s going to feel comfortable about moving back into the courthouse. All we can do is get the problem fixed as soon as we can and get it done appropriately and I think we’ve done that with the amount of money we’ve had.”

He said this issue has prompted an examination of other areas within the courthouse to fix problems.

Wayne Allen may be reached at 740-353-3101, ext. 228, or tallen@civitasmedia.com