Geary Co. Sheriff’s Office flooded due to sewage back up

JUNCTION CITY ( KSNT ) – Several inches of sewage water flooded the administration offices at the Geary County Sheriff’s Office.

Employees arrived to work on Monday, July 22, to find water at their feet. Many employees are now having to work from different areas.

The part of the building that flooded sits right beneath some jail cells. One person from the Sheriff’s Office said that inmates flushing materials they shouldn’t be is what caused the flooding.

“This is an issue inside our facility that has to do with inmates stuffing materials down the toilets and are piping that was used back in those days is not big enough to handle large amounts of solid waste.” said Jeanette DeMars, Public Information Officer for the Sheriff’s Office.

The Sheriff’s Office told 27 News the floors are now contaminated and it’s impacting people that work in different departments.

“The people that deal with the warrants, the civil process. I do financial. The other individual works with offender registration. So all of our records are down in our work office area and it’s not like we can just go to another computer. We have terminals that are necessary for NCIC and things like that.” DeMars said.

Workers say that no computers were damaged during the flooding, but they are having to work away from their computer at times.

The office said it does not have a timeline at the moment when operations will return to normal. They say several administrative staff have been displaced and will be for several weeks.

“The process got delayed today,” Demars said. “We found out ServiceMaster, who is contracted by our insurance carrier, came in. They removed all the carpet. They’ve been instructed to take samples of the carpet, the tile and the drywall for asbestos testing. And that will take at least a week to get that back. And so we’re at a standstill for right now.”

Since everyone in the office is currently moved around, some of the phone lines are not being answered. They are encouraging people to call their general line to speak with an operator who will get you connected with who you want to speak with.

The general line phone number is (785) 238-2261.

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