Wichita County Courthouse weathers waterfall

A commissioner recently walked into the Wichita County Courthouse and saw a waterfall cascading down the main elevator shafts.

A major leak from the fifth floor where old jail facilities used to be was finding holes to rush down, and the elevator shafts apparently provided a perfect outlet.

The leak happened the Friday before Christmas when the courthouse was closed to the public until the Tuesday after Christmas. But holiday weekend or not, building maintenance staff members sprang into action to fight the flood.

"We had a catastrophe Friday that without their efforts, we probably wouldn't be in the building today," Precinct 1 Commissioner Mark Beauchamp said during a Commissioners Court meeting Tuesday.

Beauchamp said Wednesday in an interview that he got a call from District Attorney John Gillespie around 6:30 p.m. Friday about his office getting wet. But a maintenance staff member was probably the first to discover the problem.

An air handler on the fifth floor busted, Beauchamp said.

“I'm unsure if it was weather–related or age-related at this point," Beauchamp said Wednesday. "The fifth-floor air handler . . . was apparently original to that construction back in the '80s."

The 106-year-old courthouse has five floors, and it has undergone renovations and additions over the years. A remodel of the first floor is underway now.

Workers are also installing new wainscoting paneling on the third floor, refreshing it with a retro look.

The courthouse isn't the only public building recently plagued with a water leak.

The day after Christmas, the city of Wichita Falls sent out a notice that the building housing the Wichita Falls-Wichita County Public Health District would be closed.

The building is remaining closed at least through Tuesday because of a major water leak and associated electrical issues.

While the water damage in the health building happened during the cold snap, officials continue to try to determine if a frozen pipe led to it or not, Chris Horgen, public information officer for the city of Wichita Falls, said by email Friday.

"It is not clear at this time if a pipe failed on its own or if it did indeed freeze," Horgan said. "Right now the focus of health officials is to restore services to the community as soon as possible."

At the courthouse, the fifth floor had been completely decommissioned and stripped down, Beauchamp said.

Inmates were transferred from the old jail facilities at the courthouse to the newly built Wichita County Law Enforcement Center in November 2021.

But the maintenance crew had brought in heaters because of the recent weather, and the air temperature was in the 60s on the fifth floor, Beauchamp said. So steps had been taken to prevent a water leak, but the air handler did break.

"We had a several thousand gallon water leak starting on the fifth floor and making its way all the way down to the first floor," Beauchamp said.

The main damage was in the DA's Office because the water found a hole from upper-floor demolition that was right over the top of an office suite within the DA's Office on the third floor, Beauchamp said.

He said he wasn't sure if the expenses associated with the water leak would meet the county's insurance deductible limit of $70,000.

"We can't afford a much cheaper deductible than that with all of our main buildings," Beauchamp said.

He said it was a team effort getting the building ready to open back up, involving the maintenance workers, help from the Wichita County Sheriff's Office, M. & F. Litteken Co., Aspen Elevator and others.

Trish Choate, enterprise watchdog reporter for the Times Record News, covers education, courts, breaking news and more. Contact Trish with news tips at tchoate@gannett.com. Read her recent work here. Her Twitter handle is @Trishapedia.

This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Wichita County Courthouse recovers from elevator-shaft waterfalls