FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — A major cleanup effort is underway at the Fulton County courthouse, after a water leak forced dozens of employees out of their offices, closed courtrooms, and damaged important court documents.
Crews are still assessing the impact at the courthouse, located on Pryor Street
It appears many areas are devastated by water damage.
"It is significant. What made it more significant is you had the water over multiple hours basically unabated,” facilities director David Ricks said.
Rick said pipe inside a ninth-floor bathroom cracked late Friday night or early Saturday morning, caving in ceiling, flooding offices, and damaging countless court documents.
“Our concern is really to the citizens and the employees to make sure we provide a good, safe working environment," Ricks said.
Some employees wore protective breathing masks and most worked in makeshift offices Monday.
Environmental tests are already underway.
"We're still at the beginning level of assessing, so today is the first day that we've really been able to get into the office spaces and really determine the impact,” court administrator Yolanda Lewis said.
Lewis said the court’s entire family division, many administrative offices, courtrooms, even the district attorney’s office are stuck wringing out slowly, but not stopping operations.
"The key thing is we're going to be very aggressive in terms of getting those areas back to normal operations," Ricks said.