Plumbers and cleanup companies are busy in the Halifax area due to frozen pipes and the resulting water damage after they burst.
The University of King’s College is dealing with its own mess after a sprinkler let go in a room on the fourth floor of its Alexandra Hall residence, damaging two floors below.
The incident happened the night before the residence was to reopen after Christmas break, forcing 45 students to check into a nearby hotel.
“I’m from B.C. so I had a big day travelling yesterday, landed in Toronto and had like three missed calls and a gazillion texts,” says university student Jessie Lay.
“Some students we hope…can return perhaps in a matter of days or just a few weeks and for some students it may be longer than that,” says Dean of Residence Nick Hatt.
But the university’s troubles didn’t stop there. A pipe burst at the campus chapel, located next to the residence, the following day. Water quickly filled the back room and flooded the chapel floor.
“When they did come back there was 10 inches of water on the floor here throughout the whole chapel,” says Alex Doyle, the university’s director of facilities.
Crews are now trying to dry the original 1929 wood floors to see what can be saved.
Halifax’s Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre is also dealing with burst pipes in the Dickson building at the Victoria General site.
“There were people whose desktops and laptop computers got wet and so they need to be replaced and then there’s water damage to ceiling, tiles and carpets,” says Capital District Health Authority spokesperson John Gillis.
The incident left the CT simulator, which is used to plan radiation treatments, out of service. Twenty-three appointments for the weeks have been postponed; eight have been rebooked for Tuesday.
“Our hope is that we’ll still be able to see all the scheduled patients within the week and so the most urgent of them will be seen tomorrow,” says Gillis.
The equipment costs roughly $1 million. The hospital is hoping to have a better idea about the extent of the damage Tuesday.
Leroy Bennett of Blackburn Bennett Plumbing says he has been run off his feet with commercial and residential calls over the last few days.
“Right now, probably an average of 35 to 40 calls a day,” says Bennett. “All I know is we’ve been busy and I’m tired.”
With files from CTV Atlantic's Jacqueline Foster
