Still no timeline for residents to return to flooded McEwen Ave. apartment building, property owner says

A car submerged in water outside a high-rise apartment building on McEwen Avenue in Ottawa. Ottawa received 118 mm of rain on Wednesday, causing flooding across the city. (Hydro Ottawa/X)

The property owner of an Ottawa apartment building says there’s no timeline yet for when residents might be able to return to their homes over a week after floodwaters on Canada day destroyed its electrical system and cut water to dozens of homes.

Saickley Properties released its first public statement since the storm destroyed the electrical system and related equipment at the Park West building on 30 McEwen Ave. on July 1. The company says its main priority is ensuring safe conditions for residents to return and is working closely with authorities to ensure compliance with fire and building code safety requirements.

“At this time, we do not have an official re-occupancy date for the tenants. Re-occupancy will occur once all public authorities have completed their inspections and given us their approval to re-occupy the building,” Saickley Properties said in an emailed statement.

“Our team and trades are working overtime to ensure full compliance with fire code and city bylaws for the safety of all residents. It is difficult to provide an estimated timeline for re-occupancy as the situation is very fluid while inspections take place and public authorities provide us with directives as to the required work to be done.”

Full power has been restored to all apartment units and to two out of three elevators, the company says. Water has also been restored, but hot water is only available above the ninth floor.

It expects hot water to return to all floors no later than Thursday.

The City of Ottawa encouraged residents to leave the building but did not order anyone to evacuate.

While there were no firm numbers on how many chose to remain inside the Park West, the city says it helped about 80 people with temporary housing as of last week.

Hydro Ottawa says flooding significantly damaged the building’s electrical vault, which requires a full rebuild. The utility notes that while it owns the transformer, the electrical vault and related equipment inside the building belong to the property owner.

The property owner says water entered from the front, north side and rear of the building, completely submerging the basement and leaving about two feet of water on the first floor, impacting the lobby area, the rental offices, the elevators and one apartment unit.

“Since the evening of July 1st, Saickley Enterprises has been working actively with our emergency response team and various other parties, such as Ottawa Hydro, the Ottawa Fire Department and the City of Ottawa, to restore the building from damage caused by the flooding as quickly and safely as possible,” the company says.

“We immediately mobilized all trades that we could for water extraction, remediation and restoration, electrical, plumbing, etc. The first trades on site on July 2^nd were the plumbing company and the remediation & restoration company to extract water out of the building and to restore the basement and lobby.”

The company says it has had staff on site every day since the flood to assist tenants with and have been providing updates to tenants by email.

The mayor said Monday that nearly 5,800 residents have now reported flooding in their basements as of Monday as the storm cleanup continues. About 118 millimetres of rain was recorded at the Ottawa airport, one of the largest rainfall totals in the city’s history.

The province is expected to announce disaster funding for Ottawa this week under the Disaster Recovery Assistance for Ontarians (DRAO) program.

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