Sprinkler leak at southeast apartment building displaces hundreds of residents
An early morning sprinkler leak in the community of Legacy sent hundreds of people into the street.
Emergency crews responded to an apartment building on Legacy Boulevard S.E. at around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday.
"Crew arrived at about 2:30 a.m. for an alarm bells call," said Calgary Fire Department District Chief Al Kozicki. "On arrival, they found water on all four floors of the apartment building."
More than 200 residents were evacuated from the building.
Calgary Transit buses were deployed to provide shelter to the displaced. The Calgary Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) and the Red Cross are assisting those affected.
According to Kozicki, approximately 100 units sustained damage and the cleanup effort will be substantial.
"They're going to be working on this for quite a while. There's a lot of units to clean up."
Residents say the fire alarm goes off on a semi-regular basis and it’s usually a false alarm. But this time around, they woke up in a panic to a shocking scene.
“There’s a ton of damage. I have electronics in there, my couch. When I was packing up I maybe had 20 minutes, but I knew I had to get out of there because it was getting all muggy and humid in there,” said Alex Monna who lives on the main floor of the affected building.
“All of my cabinets are going to be ruined, the drywall is swelling, my ceiling is coming apart. There’s water leaking everywhere, there’s water stains everywhere. It’s just a mess.”
No injuries were reported.
The fourth floor received the brunt of the damage, but just one floor below, water was still wreaking havoc.
Jaclyn Lacourciere lives on the third floor.
She told CTV News that it’s impossible to be prepared to wake up to a situation like the one she faced early Wednesday morning.
“It was a bit of a nightmare, to be honest, to wake up to that at three in the morning,” she said.
“It was a little scary at first, I felt like when I saw that water coming in I felt like I was on the Titanic or something like that.”
Restoration crews on scene tell CTV News that the full extent of the damage won't be known until late Wednesday morning at the earliest.
The cause of the leak has not been confirmed and officials have not provided a potential timeline for reopening the building.
Correction
The original version of this story indicated the inital alarm call occurred at around 4:30 a.m. Fire officials confirm the response occurred at roughly 2:30 a.m.
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