Damages from cold snap cancel classes, medical services in Nova Scotia

There were no students inside Sydney Academy on Wednesday, instead, the school was filled with workers from a local restoration company.

“We're definitely looking at weeks, possibly months and that doesn't include the repair part of it,” said Troy MacDonald, a project manager for Meco Construction DKI in Glace Bay, N.S.

Damage from last weekend's cold snap cancelled classes the last three days, and beginning Thursday, learning will be moved online.

“A sprinkler head let go causing water to migrate from the top floor basically right down to the basement floor, affecting contents and everything involved inside the school,” said MacDonald.

Nova Scotia Health is dealing with a clean-up of its own from one end of the province to the other.

“We had about 10 facilities affected,” said Steve Button, senior director of facilities management for Nova Scotia Health. “We had 15 different events and 14 out of the 15 were water-related.”

Temporary spaces are being set up to try to lessen the impact on services.

“A lot of them did have operational impacts. Anything from dialysis in Truro, we had our kitchen go down in New Glasgow and we had respiratory and therapy impacted in a couple of locations, waiting rooms, x-ray rooms, those sorts of things,” said Button.

The cost, at this point, is unknown. The health authority’s focus is on making repairs and getting back to normal, but that could take some time.

“I would expect in the next couple of days we will know more on what our projected costs will be,” said Button.

Back in Sydney, N.S., MacDonald's team is also tasked with cleaning up the Sydney Courthouse, which flooded from a burst pipe and remains closed.

“We're very busy. We had some very large claims come in, so we're trying to get through that and of course staffing is an issue,” said MacDonald.

In an email to CTV News, a spokesperson for The Cape Breton Centre for Education said it will continue to provide updates to students and their families of the Grade 9 to 12 school as more information becomes available.