By BRENT MARTIN

St. Joseph Post

Buchanan County will close the courthouse in downtown St. Joseph at one o’clock this Friday and keep it closed until Tuesday, the 23rd.

The county is installing a natural gas generator as a power backup.

Western District Commissioner, Ron Hook, says the county has never had a backup, which he says is more important than ever with the county reliance on electronic communication and data.

“Any kind of shutdown at all would be kind of a drastic happening, I guess, at the courthouse,” Hooks says, “because servers and things like that just don’t fair well when power shuts off all of a sudden.”

The courthouse will close after the lunch hour Friday and stayed closed on Monday while the new backup generator is tested. The contractor, Lee Grover Construction of St. Joseph, expects to have the generator installed by this weekend. The county decided to close the courthouse Monday in case additional work is needed. Regular business at the courthouse will resume on Tuesday, the 23rd.

Hook says the courthouse has never had a power backup.

“So, we’ve invested and saved up and we’re purchasing a $500,000, total job, generator that’s going to service the whole courthouse,” Hook says. “It’s being installed. It’s been just about a 10-month, 12-month operation, because we had some fiber lines that needed to be moved and it delayed our process.”

Again, the Buchanan County Courthouse in downtown St. Joseph will close at one o’clock this Friday afternoon as an emergency generator is installed. The courthouse will remain closed Monday. It will reopen for regular business Tuesday morning.

No jail visitation is being allowed this weekend or on Monday due to the courthouse shutdown.

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