By Adam Belz
The Gazette
CEDAR RAPIDS, Ia.— It could take a year for the Linn County Jail and Sheriff’s Office to be restored.
“Hopefully, it’ll be sooner than that, but I think we have to be realistic,” Sheriff Don Zeller said during a Thursday tour of damaged county buildings.
Linn County buildings, equipment and roads sustained an estimated $45 million in damage from the flooding, nearly half the county’s annual budget.
Timelines for returning to business at the old locations are beginning to emerge, and they come in months, not weeks.
Officials hope to have parts of the Linn County Courthouse on May’s Island operating in two months.
That is a best-case scenario, Supervisor Linda Langston said.
The county’s Administrative Services Building at 930 First St. SW, which houses the supervisors, treasurer, auditor, recorder and other offices, is a lower priority. Langston said they haven’t even decided whether they will move back to it.
“The jail and the courthouse are the priorities for us,” she said.
The supervisors, Zeller and Auditor Joel Miller took reporters on a tour of several flooddamaged county buildings Thursday.
Workers in white plastic suits chipped at mortar on the bottom floor of the courthouse, near where the Clerk of Court’s Office used to be. Floodwaters rose 7 1/2 feet above the floor.
The logistics of running the court system with less than half the number of courtrooms -- most of the operations have been moved to a building at Kirkwood Community College
See video
For a video tour of damaged buildings owned by Linn County, go to www.Gazette Online.com
-- has been a trial for judges and court administrators, Langston said.
Though county officials hope to open courtrooms in the courthouse’s upper floors, they have to make the rooms accessible to those with disabilities, which will slow the process, she said.
Supervisor James Houser walked down the sloped tunnel to the parking area under the lawn on May’s Island. Floodwaters blew off the metal doors to the parking area before rushing into the courthouse.
“You can see it just blew the casing off the wall,” Houser said.
The parking garage wasempty, still dark and smeared with mud. A ventilation fan spun in one corner, letting in light.
When the jail isn’t operating, the county loses $1.2 million in revenue every three months, Zeller said. The money that’s lost is income made by housing inmates from other jurisdictions.
The Sheriff’s Office, 200 Second Ave. SW, was remodeled recently and now faces extensive renovation.
“It makes me sick all the hard work we put in,” Zeller said.
Other county properties -- the Witwer Building, Options of Linn County, the Elections Depot, the Youth Shelter and the Mott Building -- also were damaged.
Linn supervisors have hired Jarvis Construction, a Harrison Township, Mich., contractor specializing in disaster cleanup, to work in county buildings. They say the cleanup is coming along well.
The supervisors still must arrange for contractors to work on the renovation. The important thing, said sheriff’s Maj. Brian Gardner, is to either hire a huge contractor who can work on all the projects simultaneously or to hire several contractors.
Having one contractor work through the projects one by one will be too slow.
“If they get multiple contractors, that’s better,” he said.
Copyright 2006 The Gazette