By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
CASSOPOLIS -- A sign in front of the Law and Courts Building Monday afternoon attributed its closing to an outage and said it would reopen once power was restored.
That wasn't exactly true, but they didn't have an accurate placard to blame the early shutdown on flooding.
Failure of a fire suppression line about an inch and half in diameter about 1 p.m. released a shower of water that brought soggy ceiling tiles crashing down along the courtroom corridor and in a small conference room where attorneys confer with their clients in the east wing.
No injuries were reported.
Cassopolis firefighters were on the scene mid-afternoon, pushing standing water toward outdoors between tile debris heaped along each wall.
Carpeting in Fourth District Court was so saturated it was squishy.
Given the extensive damage, it was not known immediately how long it will be before the Law and Courts Building is back in business.
It remained closed Tuesday. A company which specializes in cleaning buildings after floods was being brought in to extract the water from the furnishings.
The county's fourth courts building at 60296 M-62 was dedicated in July and opened Aug. 11.