Jasper County Courthouse experiences extensive water damage after pipe bursts

On the evening of Wednesday, January 17th the Jasper County Courthouse in Carthage experienced extensive water damage after a pipe burst due to weather conditions.

“It was an unfortunate circumstance. We had a two inch fire main up in the 4th floor, the attic of the courthouse, on the northwest corner burst because of weather conditions. And the sad fact is it only took about 30 minutes to do the destruction that we’ve seen over the past 24 hours or so.” Jasper County Clerk Charlie Davis told Newstalk KZRG.

Jasper County Presiding Commissioner John Bartosh said the court house will be closed for the rest of the week and will reopen on Monday if crews can drain the water and restore heat to the building by that time.

“The vast majority of the building is fine, unfortunately, one of the courtrooms that we had the probate court in as well as the collector’s office are pretty much a total loss. There was enough damage that the ceilings fell in on all the electronic equipment, so the computers, the printers, the fax machines are all destroyed.” Davis noted to Newstalk KZRG.

For those who have business to conduct officials are redirecting them to the Joplin courthouse located at 633 S Pearl Ave.