Slice of sandstone falls from Fairmount Palliser Hotel

A piece of sandstone fell from the Fairmont Palliser Hotel on Monday, June 8, 2015.

A chunk of sandstone fell off of the Fairmont Palliser Hotel on Monday afternoon forcing fire crews to close the underpass at 1 Street S.W. to traffic for several hours.

The piece of masonry fell off of the west side of the 101 year old hotel at about 2:30 p.m.

“We do regular perimeter checks of our building, just to keep it clean, and our executive house keeper was walking 1^st Street today and found what looked like two pieces of sandstone that may have come from our building this morning,” said David Woodward from the Fairmont Palliser. “Obviously the safety of our citizens, our guests, our colleagues are our primary concern.”

Fire crews believe it may have fallen from about the fourth floor level and are checking the rest of the sandstone ledge to ensure it is safe.

“We got a report through 911 and when we arrived on scene we cordoned off the area for safety and started looking at the building and doing a little bit of inspection to see if we could determine where it was from. We have the proper authorities on scene to help us assess the building. We have a unit here from Safety Codes for the City of Calgary,” said Jeff Primrose CFD Central District Chief.

The 1 Street S.W. underpass between 9^th and 10^th avenues was closed to traffic for several hours.

“For right now we’re just going to keep the area cordoned off. We have no vehicle traffic going on 1 street between 9^th and 10^th avenue and pedestrian traffic has been pushed to one side of the road to allow pedestrian traffic through,” said Primrose.

“As a precaution, we’re going to put some scaffolding in that area just until we can do a little bit more investigation to make sure that sidewalk area is safe,” said Woodward.

“We’re going to send a team up on top of our aerial ladder. They’re going to have a look up there. They’ve kind of determined what they think some of the weak spots might be so I think they’re going to go up and have a look at those and just determine if there’s anything further that’s dangerous at this time,” said Primrose.

The northbound lanes were reopened to trafffic just before 6:00 p.m.