An overnight partial ceiling collapse linked to ice and snow buildup has temporarily closed a downtown Galesburg eye clinic.
Kehoe Eye Care, 261 N. Broad St. in the 4L Plaza, suffered roof damage and flooding throughout the clinic when a portion of the ceiling collapsed in the overnight hours Monday night into Tuesday morning.
Dr. Peter Kehoe, longtime owner of Kehoe Eye Care, said employees found the damage when they arrived to work this morning.
Kehoe tells WGIL, “The staff discovered it when they came in at 7:30 this morning, and I started getting text messages saying, ‘OMG, what are we going to do here?’
“Thank God it wasn’t during the middle of the day, with staff sitting there eating lunch when this thing collapsed.”
Kehoe said the ceiling collapse happened in the break room portion of the newly remodeled clinic. He said most of the structural damage is limited to the break room portion of the clinic, but said, “about two thirds of the office has standing water in it.”
“The good news is, we’re in a small town and you can call the contractors,” he said. “They’ve already been out, and the fire department helped with some pumps to get the water out.
“I’d say we’re looking at least a couple of weeks to get back to patient care. But we won’t be back to full strength for a month or more. It’s not the best time of year to do a roof.”
While the Galesburg office remains closed, Kehoe said the practice will be able to serve patients at its satellites offices in Monmouth and Galva.
“If they are willing, we’ll try to shift some of the patients over to our other locations,” he said.
Kehoe said six inches of ice was found on the roof in the area of the collapse, with snow on top of that.
He said tenants in 4L Plaza located to the west of the clinic should not be impacted by the roof damage.
“From the clinic to the east is a flat roof, but most of the rest of the building is a barrel roof and that’s not affected,” Kehoe said. “So really, it’s just our clinic, and primarily the west portion of it.”
