NATCHEZ — Approximately a year after protective barriers went up around a section sidewalk in front of the Adams County Sheriff’s Office lest a falling brick hit a passer-by, masonry work to repair the face of the building is under way.

“The bricks were falling off, pushing off from the building,” ACSO Spokesperson Courtney Taylor said. “We didn’t want the chance that anyone walking that close to the building or parking there in case something popped off.”

The repair, which mason David Claiborne quoted to the county at a cost of $15,000, is fixing a crack at the corner of the building near the administrative offices on the corner of State and Wall streets. Architect Johnny Waycaster, who has worked with the county on the building as part of a larger evaluation of its overall needs in the last year, said the repairs being made now were not the only repairs needed to the facing but were identified as the most significant.

The issue is moisture that had gotten between the structure’s concrete walls and the brick facing, Waycaster said.

“You can’t start stacking brick from the ground level up three stories without inviting the issues concerned,” he said. “They place a steel angle to the wall. They are not resting on top of each other.

“But that steel angle had started rusting, and the rusting action caused a slight expansion, and any slight movement with brick is unforgiving, and that is how that crack occurred.”

Waycaster said the damage is limited to the brick veneer of the building.

“The structure on the building is sound,” he said. “It’s poured concrete block, and it is as stable and secure as it was when it was put up.”

The latest round of repairs follows a replacement of the building’s roof earlier this year, which was intended to address a number of environmental issues inside the building due to leakage.

Those environmental issues included mold, and the county government had the air quality in the jail tested last year.

After several months of discussion about possible replacement of the facility — prompted by a court order instructing the county to find answers to the structure’s issues — the county government ultimately decided making repairs to the existing facility was cheaper.