LAURINBURG — The Scotland County Board of Elections met Monday and discussion focused on the damage done by flooding in the wake of Hurricane Florence.
The Scotland County Annex was swamped by flood waters and, after drying, mold was found in the building so the county has brought in Survpro who are removing walls and carpet and drying out the building. The water came in not only passed the sandbags that lined the doors but also through the roof.
While Survpro is working to make sure the building is safe for workers to be in an issue arises with the fact that the conference room in the annex is used as One-Stop Early Voting which will begin on Oct. 17 at 7 a.m.
The location is also used as Precinct One on election day.
Currently, the room has lost the bottom of the walls and items are crammed into the middle of the room.
With the elections beginning soon Board of Elections Director Dell Parker has to figure out what will happen with One-Stop. While she hopes that contractors will be able to come in and fix the room so that voting can happen, she has to look at backup options. The backup options would potentially be renting a large tent with floors, adding a generator and tables in the parking lot to hose One-Stop until its able to be moved back into its usual location.
Besides the conference room, the office of the elections office is also in a state of disarray as the carpet has been pulled up, water pumped from the floors, walls in different areas are now missing and most of the furniture now located in a pile in the middle of the room.
Despite all this Parker, along with Elections Assistant Chassidy Brewer, are pushing forward with everything that has to continue on with the general election.
“If we can make this one happen without any hiccups, life’s going to be great,” Parker said. “We’re continuing on despite everything that’s happening so that the voters will be able to vote on election day.”
While there are several other buildings in the county that are suffering the same way that the annex is Precinct Six at the East Laurinburg Community Building on Third Street in East Laurinburg has suffered some damage as well from the storm. But the building is expected to be fixed and ready for election day on Nov. 6.
As everything for elections much continues on Parker told the board that precinct official training will begin on Monday and also informed them about the location moved of Precinct Eight.
Precinct Eight was located at the Snead’s Grove Community Building will be moved six miles to the Economic Development Building on U.S. 401 as the former location needed work to continue being used as a polling station. However, the move will only be for this election and another location will have to be found before the precinct is used again in the 2020 election.
