County begins cleanup after flood

WARREN - County employees from several departments spent Monday removing records from the former Wean Building after a sprinkler system pipe inside burst Sunday night.

A sleeve joining two 4-inch pipes burst on the fourth floor, sending water down the staircase and soaking files on lower floors for the county Clerk of Courts and Prosecutor's offices and 11th District Court of Appeals.

Scanners and a computer being used to scan county Probate Court records were not damaged. Probate Judge Thomas Swift said he intends to move the equipment to the Stone Building when room there is available.

Tribune Chronicle / R. Michael Semple A sprinkler system pipe inside the former Wean Building that burst on Sunday caused water damage to several boxes of county records. County workers spent Monday removing the files.

Swift said all probate archives are being digitized to go on-line and old docket books will be sent to storage facilities in Pennsylvania caves.

''We moved once before when the roof was leaking,'' Swift said. ''This was a work in progress.''

County Commissioner Frank Fuda said the county's print shop on the basement floor remained dry with no damage after Sunday's episode. Also, no records held by the Recorder's Office were damaged.

''Of 3,000 boxes (of court files), about 450 were damaged and will have to be freeze-dried or chamber dried before they are moved,'' said Lynn Wallace-Smith, the record manager for non-probate court records and other records in the Recorder's Office

She said all 3,000 boxes were ready to be moved to the former First Place Bank building that the county bought last year, but space at the bank building was not prepared yet. File boxes were still being moved Monday.

Gary Hetzel with the Prosecutor's Office was removing case files from outdated criminal cases, some of them from death row inmates who had been executed.

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County begins cleanup after flood