The Sequatchie County Fair building in Dunlap, Tenn., is riddled with roof leaks and suffering increasingly from water damage, says fair advisor Karen Marshall. She points to makeshift repairs where fair signs and election billboards replace damaged ceiling tiles.FOR MORE INFORMATIONCompany officials interested in bidding on roof repairs at the Sequatchie County Fair building should call the Sequatchie County Executive’s Office at 423-949-3479. The bid deadline is 10 a.m. CDT on April 13.
DUNLAP, Tenn. — As Sequatchie County officials study a new roof for the Sequatchie County Fair building, fair adviser Karen Marshall narrows her eyes at the rain-darkened clouds bearing down on the facility’s leaky roof Friday.
Marshall guesses there are at least 25 roof leaks in the building — part of the structure originally built as Sequatchie County Elementary School — and the leaks are growing worse since they started three years ago.
Temporary fixes only made some holes so big that birds coming in through them are a new problem, she said. Many of the ceiling tiles are so damaged, they’ve been replaced with makeshift fixes such as political election and county fair signs that workers discovered fit nicely into the old ceiling grid.
Ray Hobbs, chairman of the County Commission’s Building and Grounds Committee, said a solution must be found before damage outruns the county’s ability to fix it.