On
Wednesday afternoon, April 28, 2004, flames raged through Blair
Hall, destroying Eastern Illinois University’s third oldest
building. The roof collapsed onto the building’s third story,
where stone arches were the only architecture visible through
the fire, smoke, and water. Despite the extreme damage, no injuries
or fatalities occurred.
At
the time of the fire, Blair Hall housed a number of academic offices
and classrooms including, among others, the Department of Sociology,
the Graduate School, School of Continuing Education, and the Alpha
Sigma Lambda National Office. Fortunately, the ASL National Office
had been re-located from the second floor to the ground floor
of Blair Hall in September 2003. Because of its location, the
ASL office suffered no actual fire damage. Most of the materials
which were not housed inside cabinets or drawers suffered water
damage and were not salvaged. Contents of the file cabinets were
smoked and damp but have been sent to a company specializing in
chemically cleaning fire-damaged materials. It is likely that
most of the historical files which were located in the ground
floor office will be salvaged. A few historical documents and
products housed in a storage closet on the third floor of Blair
Hall were lost in the fire.
Within
24 hours, the ASL office had been relocated to an on campus site
with the School of Continuing Education. Within the first 72 hours,
Eastern Illinois University had restored telephone and e-mail
access to all offices and relocated all other departments whose
offices had been located in the damaged building. Although ASL
was slowed by the damage, business proceeded in a relatively normal
manner with few delays or difficulties which could not be quickly
overcome.
On
Monday, August 2, 2004, the ASL National Office and the School
of Continuing Education were moved to their long-term temporary
location on Lincoln Avenue. The new offices will house ASL until
Blair Hall has been restored. Plans call for completion of the
restoration project by late 2005 or January, 2006.
For
pictures and related local stories of the damaged building, click
on the attached link (Opens in new browser window).
