Disaster day in Halifax

As previously mentioned, there was a relatively substantial apartment fire in Halifax's South end this morning. It turns out that at about the same time a water main problem was developing on Prince Street, only a few blocks away from the fire.

This afternoon, after checking out the fire, Neil and I made our way to Prince Street to see what was going on and how bad the damage was. Almost as soon as we reached Prince and Argyle it became clear that the repair job was pretty substantial. As we made our way down to Barrington it was clear that quite a number of nearby buildings suffered at least some flooding. I think that another problem that existed for some period of time was ice build-up on the roads and sidewalks in the area. Fortunately, by mid-afternoon not as much water was leaving the system so there was less water on the roads and sidewalks.

The clip below is a relatively uninformative shot of the repair work in progress. Behind the pile of rubble is a pretty big hole, which is presumably where the rupture happened.



[Embedded Video]

I guess I should also mention that there was apparently a flare up at the fire at some point this afternoon. When I returned from school at about 6:00 there were still all kinds of emergency vehicles with flashing lights going. Hopefully everything will be under control by tonight.

Apartment Update 4

-Almost everyday it seems that I am discovering new portions of our parquet floor that are no longer attached to the sub-floor. This trend is somewhat frustrating as it seems to be leading to the furthering of the problem. I feel that at some point, maybe even before we leave, most of the wooden slats will actually just be resting on the sub-floor, only kept in place by the presence of the other pieces and the force exerted by gravity.

-Over the past few weeks Nithum and I have had several periods of time during which we didn’t have water. It seems that as time is progressing these periods of waterlessness are increasing in frequency, as well as in vagueness of definition.

The instance of waterlessness several days ago included a relatively concise time frame during which we could expect to find ourselves without water. The outage scheduled for tomorrow includes no such details, and simply states that we should expect to be without water for the day. I really wish they had included a start time as it would have given me an indication of when to get up to ensure that I would have time for a shower before the outage.

Hopefully I remember to fill our Brita and a soup pot tonight.

-It seems that we may finally have to start paying for electricity, though who knows when we might actually get our first bill.

-During the frequent temperature fluctuations that we have experienced this winter it has become painfully obvious that our building is heated centrally and that the quantity of heating to be outputted is not dependant upon the amount actually needed. This means that on days like today when the temperature is above zero, the apartment has a tendency to be unbearably warm, leading me to go as far as to open several windows as well as our balcony door.

-Our freezer is pretty full.

OMG! WTF? No power, water, or heat?

A few minutes ago Nithum asked me if I knew anything about the power, heating, and water outages that are to take place in our building tonight. He indicated that he had seen a such to such effect on the building’s main doors.

This was a bit of a shock as I had not idea such an event was in the works. The last time that I had entered the doors this had not been posted.

Upon checking the sign I saw that Nithum’s assessment was quite accurate, we are supposedly in for a complete shutdown this evening, though does appear to be a slight lack of clarity as to whether this will actually go through. As much as possible, an answer one-way or the other would be nice. This maybe, maybe not scenario is less than pleasing.

What I find particularly shocking about this is that there may be a good number of people in the building that have no idea that such a shutdown is to occur as the sign was not posted until well after 5:00 PM. Many of us likely entered the building for the evening by that time and won’t find out that something is up until they find out that everything is out for eight hours.

I guess I will just wait and see. I particularly hope that I am able to finish my reference assignment before the bewitching hour.