 From the street, the office at 114 E. Cooke St. on the Mount Pulaski
square doesn't look all that different than before. The yellow
police tape crossing the front entry does tell passers-by that
something is going on. But once inside, it's easy to see that
something terrible has happened inside this building. In the front,
the lights are out and there is dust everywhere. Walking through the
building and toward the back to Powell's private office is when the
real shock of the situation hits. Inside the office, the far wall is
lying somewhat on its side with masses of rubble behind and
underneath it.
Peering through a door that once led to the office bathroom, one
can see piles of debris filling the space and even descending into
the basement area. In the bathroom itself, the only thing visible is
the sink, and even it is terribly out of place.
Powell spoke about the area, saying, "If anyone had been in that
bathroom, they would be dead."
Looking up, one can see the blue sky where once a two-story
building stood. In general, to call the place a shambles could very
well be an understatement.
Powell's office building is flanked on either side by two vacant
buildings. The one to the west belongs to the city of Mount Pulaski,
and the one to the east, which is the former Matador Restaurant,
belongs to David Crawford of Lincoln.
Powell said Crawford had recently hired a crew to work on the
roofing of his building. Powell had gone up to his own roof to look
for hail damage and was not satisfied with how the crew had
overlapped their work onto his roof. He had contacted Crawford and
told him there were problems that needed to be addressed.
On the day of the collapse, Crawford had people working once
again on the roof of his building.
According to Andy Meister, a member of Powell's team, he and
co-workers Jody Stewart and Sarah Farris were all in the building
when the collapse occurred.
"I think I reacted more slowly than the girls did," Meister
said. "I heard the noise, and then the doors blew open. I looked
back into Deron's office, and I could see the sky."
Meister said they began to smell gas very soon after that and
immediately left the building and called 911. Knowing there were
workers on the roof next door, the group started around to the back
of the building to see if anyone was hurt.
Meister said Crawford's workers met them coming around the
corner, as the crew from the roof rushed to check on the folks in
the Powell office.
Powell said the fire department arrived quickly as did Ameren,
who had to shut off the gas and electric. "They were here within 20
minutes and had everything turned off."
Powell said so far two engineers have inspected the buildings,
and the city has condemned all three.
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In spite of what happened to the office, Powell said the agency
is up and running. It's been a rough week for them, but everything
is intact and their clients are being served.
The offices have been temporarily relocated to 123 S. Lafayette,
on the east side of the square. The building is owned by Bill and
Jean Cavestani, to whom Powell expressed great appreciation. "The
Cavestanis have been wonderful," he said. "The day this happened,
they said, ‘If you need something, it's open for you.'"
The office computers are tied to the corporate offices in
Bloomington. Powell said the company didn't want to have their
technicians go into the damaged building, so they sent all new
computers to the new location.
Also, all the paper files have been safely moved into the new
offices, so for the clients of the agency, they can rest assured
that all their information is secure.
Powell said that right now, he's not certain where he will end up
permanently. No doubt it will be in Mount Pulaski, and he would
prefer it be on the downtown square, but time will tell.
Powell said the city of Mount Pulaski will have some effect on
how quickly the three condemned buildings can be destroyed. While he
owns the lot where his building was and would prefer to rebuild on
it, he said he has to move fairly quickly on finding a permanent
location, and he doesn't know if the city will be able to do that.
The location he is now using, though much appreciated, isn't
ideal because it is one large room, with no privacy. "If you're a
client wanting to talk about your life insurance, you're not going
to want to do that here," Powell said.
Finally, while Powell is counting blessings that no one was
injured, that he has an office, and things are going to soon get
back to some kind of normalcy, he's a bit sad about what he has
lost.
Like many folks in the Logan County area, Powell has a great deal
of respect for the community history. His building was built in
1836, and he has possession of the original abstract on the
property.
As he leafed through it, he noted the names of the city founders
and said the history of the building is right there -- every person
who owned it over the span of time. "It's just sad to see this
go," he concluded.
[By NILA SMITH]
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