There was probably some data backup. But they department probably did the thing they usually do when told to remove something: Restrict or remove public acces, it’s pretty common on government websites. There’s also a high likelyhood that the goons didn’t check for all the backups if they went in themselves.

As an example, just the other day I was looking for some data with all scripts and such turned off in the browser, when I landed on a twenty year old page that was replaced around fifteen years ago but they only added a redirect and replaced the link on the public pages. Found it through some archived links, and the rest of the page was still all there just without images, and with several working links.