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Macomb, IL – Dr. Terry Vail, President of Vision Consultants Limited, remembers the night like it was yesterday. He was at home having a relaxing evening, when a couple of his patients called him around 7:00.
"They heard on the scanner that there was smoke coming out of Chelsea's [Hallmark], which was the building adjacent to me," says Vail. "I didn't think much about it."
15 minutes later, Vail's wife came home, and he asked if she'd like to take a ride uptown. They couldn't get onto the square, but they were able to drive up to Citizens Bank's employee parking lot, directly behind the building at 119-121 S. Side Square.
"There was smoke coming out at that time, and I got quite a bit more concerned than I was 20 minutes earlier," he says.
Vail and his wife, and a growing gaggle of onlookers, watched the fire progress for a couple more hours.
"The fire started coming out of the top of the building at about 9:00. At about 10 or 10:30, I said 'I can't watch it anymore, I'm going home,'" says Vail. "At that point in time, there was not much you could do by standing there, except feel more depressed."
Vail has been with Vision Consultants since 1972, which was a few short years after the company moved into the building.
The building on the south side of Macomb's Courthouse Square was a complete loss. The fire department never determined a cause, and the historic brick facade that remains on the site is set to be demolished.
Dr. Vail says he started thinking about the future as soon as he got home that night. Nearly two and a half months later, Vision Consultants has re-opened on South Randolph street next to Vintage Accents. The business was able to retrieve about "five percent" of its optometry equipment, and saved most patient records.
Vail says the moving process took about a month longer than he would have liked. But he says the community support he received during the transition helped a lot.
"Dr. Bengtson's office allowed me to use their exam room for maybe a half day or a day per week to see [our patients] that we really needed to see," says Vail. "Everybody just kind of reached out to us. That's one of the positive things that came through the whole thing. All my colleagues were very supportive."
Vision Consultants' new facility began taking patients last Wednesday. There are still a few boxes on the ground. The store still smells of new carpet, fresh paint and drywall.
Vail has had to buy a lot of new equipment, and he's still unsure how much insurance will cover. But for now, he's just happy to be back at work.
"With any job, sometimes you think 'Oh, you know I'm kind of tired of doing my job on certain days,'" says Vail. "But I'll tell you what, this is a heck of a lot more fun than filling out insurance claims for two and a half months. It's actually fun to be back to work doing what you're trained to do, and what you like to do."