Jefferson City apartment complex damaged
An apartment complex in Jefferson City suffered damage after heavy rain overnight caused ceilings in some of the apartments to cave in.
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Residents of the apartment building on 126 Marshall Street woke up to the damage Monday morning.
The building was previously damaged by the May EF-3 tornado that hit Jefferson City. At least five residents must relocate from the building, said Jefferson City Fire Department Division Chief Jerry Blomberg.
The entire top floor of the apartment complex was deemed unlivable by the city.
No one was seriously hurt in the incident.
The building’s owner, Jason Corrado, told ABC 17 News he arraigned a city-mandated temporary fix to the tornado damage that his building sustained.
Plastic sheeting was placed on the damaged areas of the roof and, according to the building owner, a recent string of boiling hot days broke down the plastic material and exposed the damaged roof to the rain that fell Monday morning.
Jefferson City building official Larry Burkhardt said identifying all the damage left behind by the May tornado wil likely be a years-long effort.
“We just anticipate it’s going to take a couple of years to repair all the storm damage,” said Burkhardt. “We just keep finding things. The storm picks up roofs and puts them back down, and later, we discover that gusset plates or truss members are broken and it doesn’t look like it.”
Burkhardt said ongoing inspections by city officials and building owners is the best way to identify compromised structures.
“Once you get in there and start investigating, you’re going to find a lot of that hidden damage, the storm did a lot of strange things,” said Burkhardt.
The apartment building was marked with a yellow sign, indicating that the assessment team that inspected it for damage after the tornado determined that it was still habitable at the time of the collapse.
