Drenching slows motions at Palmer Courthouse

PALMER — A frozen sprinkler pipe at the Palmer Courthouse drenched courtrooms and offices Thursday, displacing judges, lawyers and defendants alike.

It’s been a tough few weeks for large buildings with sprinkler systems in Palmer.

On Jan. 26 at the Mat-Su Borough administration building, winds blew open a window, allowing cold air to freeze a pipe above the Borough manager’s office. The pipe broke, sending water cascading through three stories of offices.

On Thursday, the Gold Miner’s Hotel had a pipe break, Palmer Police Department reports. A man who answered the hotel phone Friday declined further comment. The hotel has been closed for three weeks for renovations and to fix fire code violations.

Though temperatures in the Valley have lately been dipping well below zero, calls to local plumbing companies turned up no signs of a larger pipe-freezing trend. On Friday, Wendy Lyford, area court administrator for the Third Judicial District, which includes the Valley, said staff hasn’t quite nailed down why the courthouse pipe froze.

She said water pooled in the ceiling above the judges’ chambers then broke through the ceiling tiles.

Superior Court Judge Beverly Cutler wrote in an e-mail Friday that the tiles came down in stages over the course of 15 minutes.

“It seemed to take forever to get the main water supplies turned off,” Cutler says.

Lyford estimates water flooded up to an inch and a half deep in the courtrooms and offices. By Friday, reports from Palmer indicated the drying-out process was proceeding faster than expected, she said.

Ryan Montgomery, project manager with ServiceMaster of the Valley, said drying out the courthouse should cost more than $20,000. He said 10 people, 61 air movers and seven dehumidifiers have been working in the building since the pipe broke. He expects by Monday the building should have three or four functioning courtrooms. It will be back to normal by Wednesday at the latest.

Montgomery’s company handled the water trouble at the Borough building as well. That project will cost more than $50,000 as it involves a larger space and multiple floors, Montgomery said.

When assessing the courthouse, Montgomery said that “after seeing the Borough building, we were kind-of relieved.”

Drying fans had been blowing through the courthouse all day Friday, Cutler says.

“The first thing I did this morning after I got here was go to my car and get out a box of earplugs that I keep in there,” she said.

She compared the hoses and wires lining the courthouse to intravenous lines running through a surgical theater. The only courtroom to escape the water was one located on the other side of the building.

“Four judges are sharing the one courtroom … doing just their emergencies or most important hearings, in batches, calling out, ‘Next!’ to the judge in line when they exit through the judge’s door,” Cutler says.

Judges are rooming with the clerks for now and lawyers have been calling all day to offer hip-waders, she says.

Lyford said people with hearings scheduled should show up Monday as usual. If anyone is unsure they can check the calendar at state.ak.us/courts or call the clerk’s office at 746-8181 during business hours.

“Kudos particularly go to our uniformed court service officers … who got all the prisoners back to Mat-Su Pretrial quickly, and then came and assisted in moving things or holding doors open so things could be moved, and in directing the onlookers to back off,” Cutler writes in her description of the event.

She also commends the clean-up crews, lawyers who pitched in to move boxes and the clerk supervisors who have been filling in for head clerk Teresa Shaw while she is out of state.

“[They] showed tremendous leadership and skill in getting right onto figuring out what needed to be done and to doing it,” Cutler says.

In her office, Cutler lost a couple of law books, a few pairs of shoes she hasn’t worn in years and some items like bookmarks and buttons she hands out to high-schoolers on May 1 each year for Law Day.

“I'd say we lost nothing serious that I know of, not even anyone’s baby pictures,” Cutler says.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.