Hill County slated for $322K in hail payments

Hill County has received $322,000 in insurance payments for damage that county properties incurred during last July’s hailstorm, including $250,000 of which will go toward making repairs to buildings on the Great Northern Fairgrounds.

The amount was revealed by Hill County Commissioner Jeff LaVoi at the fair board’s monthly meeting April 19.

He disclosed additional details Monday in an interview with the Havre Daily News.

The payments come 10 months after communities along the Hi-Line were hit by a major hail storm last year on the night of July 4. Power outages

were widespread throughout Havre, as roofs and windows were pelted with hailstones of up to two inches in diameter.

LaVoi said that the Montana Association of Counties, or MACO, the insurance provider for Hill County, initially put the damage at $192,000. However, at the request of the county, contractors later gave their own estimate of $250,000.

LaVoi said adjusters sometimes “miss things” when surveying damage, and MACO has been “relatively fair” to the county.

Roofs of the antiquated buildings on the fairgrounds, sustained some of the worst damage.

LaVoi and fellow Commissioner Mark Peterson said many of the facilities on the fairgrounds were constructed in the 1930s, with roofs that were already deteriorating before the storm.

None of the buildings, however, were structurally unsound or represent a danger to the public, LaVoi said.

It is not yet known which repairs will be made to which buildings on the fairgrounds.

LaVoi and the fair board members agreed at the last meeting that after the next fair board meeting they will survey the grounds to determine how best to spend the money.

LaVoi said the county wants the fair board to submit a plan on how best to spend the money.

“Then when we concur what to do, we will move forward and do the fixing,” he said.

The remaining $72,000 will be spent on other county buildings that were damaged in the storm, LaVoi said, including the Hill County Road and Bridge Department, detention center, sheriff’s department, county courthouse and annex buildings.

A new roof has been put on The Hill County Road and Bridge Department building, after the old one had been leaking.

LaVoi said that has been the only project completed so far.

Other items that will need to be replaced include a pair of air conditioning and heating units on the roof of the annex building at a cost of $15,000, and window screens on the courthouse.

“That’s about the only damage we really had on the courthouse,” LaVoi said.

He said much of the other damages to county buildings were minor.