City of Winnipeg orders evacuation of Portage Avenue apartment block after structural issues found
CBC
Emotions are running high inside of a Portage Avenue apartment building after the city ordered residents to vacate Thursday night due to serious structural deterioration.
The City of Winnipeg has issued an order to the owner of 2440 Portage Ave., also known as Birchwood Terrace, to immediately vacate the building under city building and emergency management bylaws due to unsafe conditions, it said in a news release late Thursday night.
The order was made after the city said it was notified of a third-party engineering inspection that discovered severe deterioration in various parts of the building's structure.
A city spokesperson says there are about 180 suites in the building, but it's not yet certain how many are occupied.
CBC obtained a copy of the city's evacuation order, as well as a Thursday night memo sent to residents by Lakewood Agencies, which operates Birchwood Terrace on behalf of its parent company, Ladco.
The city order cites from an inspection by an engineering consultant, which says it found serious corrosion in columns of Birchwood Terrace's parkade, adding that it "leads us to believe that this is a pervasive condition that puts the overall stability of the structure in question."
The Lakewood Agencies memo says the leases of Birchwood Terrace residents are considered terminated as of Thursday and invites them to a Friday information meeting.
"There may be more damaged structure but further investigation cannot proceed if the building is occupied," it says. "Furthermore, repairs cannot be completed while the building is occupied."
Julia Walton, who has lived in the building for over a year, says she got home around 8 p.m. Thursday and saw police outside, but didn't think anything of it.
She went to her apartment to get her dog, and didn't realize something was wrong until making her way back out.
"I was in the elevator and this woman said 'This is a nightmare,'" and told her about the evacuation order, Walton told CBC.
"Some people in the hallway were saying they have nowhere to go."
Birchwood Terrace houses many seniors, she said.
"There are some very senior people in this block that have been in here for 30 years that don't have other family, and they have pets, and it's just heartbreaking to think what are they going to do?"
Debbie Sinclair may not be ready yet to talk at length about what it will feel like to be able to walk through the front door of her home in Cranberry Portage, Man., but one thing she's sure of: "They're heroes," Sinclair said of the fire crews, volunteers, emergency and Manitoba Hydro workers who for more than a week have been toiling to protect the wildfire-threatened community, which was deemed safe for residents to return to starting at 10 a.m. Sunday.