The Damaged State Capitol

@SoDakCampaigns

If you haven’t caught the twitter feed coming from the Governor’s Chief of Staff Tony Venhuizen, Tony has been documenting much of the damage around the State Capitol grounds from the recent storm in Pierre for Social Media:

And that damage to the Capitol isn’t insignificant. According to the Capitol Journal:

The storm also ripped off as much as 25 percent of the copper flashing from the Capitol Building annex’s roof, officials say.

About 15 square feet of copper was peeled back and thrown to the Capitol’s lawn, said Leah Svendsen who oversees maintenance on the Capitol grounds.

“That copper just kind of peeled off,” Svendsen said. “We’re really lucky that it happened at 3 a.m.”

Svendsen said she doesn’t yet know what the cost of repairing the copper flashing will be but it won’t be cheap or easy.

“It’s hard to find companies that can repair the copper,” she said.

Losing the copper led to some water damage on the Capitol’s fourth floor, Svendsen said, and repairs will need to be made. The roof has since been sealed, she said.

No other damage was reported to the Capitol building, Svendsen said.

Read that here in the Capitol Journal.

I asked Tony last night about the damage to the State Capitol, and “whether the repairs can be covered through existing funds, or will special measures have to be taken to cover the costs?”  He indicated that the structure is covered by insurance, which should alleviate some of the burden taxpayers will have to bear for the storm damage.

I suspect however that the trees are a different story.

The potential problem is that the Capitol Complex building fund is always stretched beyond it’s limits with basic maintenance projects, and a massive storm is going to tax already limited resources.