Residents set to move back into Ottawa apartment building following flood

Residents in an Ottawa apartment building devastated by flooding will finally be able to return home on Friday, but many floors still don’t have hot water, and many other services remain unavailable.

Residents in an Ottawa apartment building devastated by flooding will finally be able to return home on Friday, but many floors still don’t have hot water, and many other services remain unavailable. The building is located at 30 McEwen Avenue in the city’s west-end, one of the hardest-hit areas during the July 1 storm. The Park West apartment building became surrounded by water and experienced flooding the basement, which damaged the transformer and knocked out power and hot water.

CTV News has obtained an update sent out to tenants from Saickley Enterprises Property Management on Thursday, which says residents will be able to move back in on Friday at 10 a.m. Power has been restored to all of the units, but residents say other outages mean conditions will be far from ideal. Marlene Brancato is one resident getting ready to move back into her apartment more than two weeks after the devastating flood.

“I’ve spent the last 16 days with my family,” said Brancato. “I think everything on my floor is working, but we have no internet.” Brancato says water was in the building’s hallways but did not impact her unit.

“I did have to climb up 24 floors a couple of times to clean out my fridge and things like that because I didn’t want everything to rot,” said Brancato. Since the Canada Day storm, residents have been occasionally returning to check on their units. Resident Candis Stona returned for the first time since the flooding.

“We have to get a few more clothes, some drugs that I need, and the fridge is rotting of all of the food,” said Stona. “We are going to see if we can clean that out now but just take it day by day.” The building is still powered by generators.

In their letter to tenants, Saickley Enterprises said power has been restored to all units and two of three elevators are working. However, residents are being urged to limit the use of major appliances, especially air conditioners, to avoid overloading generators. There’s no laundry, no garbage chute and no hot water on several floors.

Outside the building, bicycles were seen piled into a large dumpster bin as the basement storage remains inaccessible. Tenants say they are unsure of what they will walk into on Friday morning. “The key fob doesn’t work, apparently they are giving out actual keys for the door so there’s security here that lets you in I guess.

We will find out,” said Edward Augusto, who was helping his partner move back in. Some residents tell CTV News that they feel unsure about the conditions in the building, but Saickley Enterprises says there is still a lot of work to be done to have the building back to normal. As of now there are no outstanding Ontario fire code issues preventing re-occupancy.