RANSON, W.Va. — Employees of the Jefferson County Day Report Center will be temporarily working out of the Independent Fire Company banquet hall until they can get a more permanent fix after a Friday evening fire tore the roof off the building amid widespread storms.
“They’re using some of our equipment, computers and things like that, of course during a fire of that magnitude, you lose a whole lot of your IT materials,” Steve Allen, director of the Jefferson County Office of Emergency Services, said on Monday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”
The Day Report Center is in Ranson where the bulk of damage from the storm was reported. Allen said Monday there are still some road closures in place.
“The one street in front of Third Avenue is still blocked off at this time because of the possibility of a building collapse. It’s right across the street from Ranson City Hall,” he said.
Meanwhile, much of the county continues to recover from Friday’s storm damage. Allen said more than two dozen calls came in for downed trees and power lines due to high winds.
“At one point we had power outages in the neighborhood of about 1,500 at least at that time,” Allen said. “Potomac Edison did a great job of within a couple of hours getting it down to a more manageable 300-400.”
About four other fires were reported in the county Friday and were all blamed on downed power lines and trees which damaged electrical equipment.
There were no reports of any injuries, Allen said.
Damage assessments continued Monday.