The fairgrounds in my county have been there since the 1730’s, however the buildings aren’t that old, but I recognize they have been there for fifty years or more… All of the buildings could use a facelift, and sadly, there isn’ta lot of currency in the county budget to repair up the venue, people have moved out of the country and into the city and there’s no currency coming into the budget for improvements like that.
After last week’s storm, I do not recognize there’s much hope that the fairgrounds are even going to remain open; We had 2 inches of rain on Tuesday and then another inch of rain on Thursday… On Tuesday, my buddy and I had another inch of rain and that’s when the winds were the hardest.
Some of the wind gusts were up to 73mph, including the wind gust that ripped the roof off the top of the grand stand. The roof was scattered in bits and pieces all over the fairgrounds. The next day, the scrub up crew scrambled to scrub up the mess before the next surge of rain began. When the commercial roofing supplier came to assess the disfigurements, I was working in the office, then i was listening to the commercial roofing company that came to give my boss an estimate. The roofing updatement and repairs are significant and the county isn’tgoing to hand over those funds to a dying institution like the county fair. The currency would be much better spent to repair up the youth center. The building and the parking lot has been abandoned for six years and it’s a real shame that the venue sits vacant.