BRYAN COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC) – Work is now underway to rebuild a key county building destroyed in a storm.
April’s tornado left Bryan County’s north end complex severely damaged.
Months later, signs of improvement as crews work to make repairs to buildings housing crucial county residents.
“The damage from the tornado left the county with four main projects: the courthouse, the admin building, the jail complex and Hendrix,” Bryan County Communications Manager Matthew Kent said.
New this month, roofing and framing is now up at the admin building. It’s where many residents go to pay county bills and access other services.
Since the storm, those services have run out of nearby trailers, which staff say has caused some confusion among residents.
“We do feel sorry for the public when they’re going back and forth between trailers and they don’t know which trailers they’re supposed to go into,” Community Development Director Audra Miller said.
Funds for the repairs are coming from an insurance policy with the Association of County Commissioner of Georgia.
According to the county’s administrator, Bryan County’s claim is the largest that the ACCG has ever processed – showing the large scale of damage.
“That’s one of the reasons that we currently have the trailers up there to house county services. We wanted to get those back as soon as possible so that we had services on both ends of the county,” Kent said.
Next up for repairs will be roofing and drywall fixes to the courthouse, and alarm fixes to the county’s jail process.
For staff working out of the service trailers, a return to a normal building can’t come soon enough.
“It’ll be nice to be back in one building and they can just come in and not have to knock on a bunch of different doors,” Miller said.
Repairs are expected to be complete by the end of this year.
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