City hall remains closed after electrical fire

Toronto City Hall is still closed and the lights are out until further notice after a hydro vault in the basement of the building was damaged by an electrical fire on Thursday.

Five generators have been brought in and emergency repairs are ongoing in an attempt to get the power back on at the municipal building.

At a news conference outside city hall on Friday, Brian Buchan, a spokesperson for Toronto Hydro, said it will take some time before the generators are hooked up and that “the power won’t be restored until sometime this afternoon.”

Later in the day, the city tweeted to say that hydro crews were targeting 6-7 p.m. to make “final connections to generators.” However, by nightfall power was not yet restored.

In a tweet on Saturday morning, the city said the generators will be turned on one at a time, followed by switching and testing. Toronto Hydro said the generators are up and crews are helping the city “power up their systems.”

“We’re slowing going to bring the building back up to power. We are going to do it in sequence so that we don’t cause any further disruption to the power supply,” deputy city manager John Livey said.

Buchan also said it’s not yet known how long city hall will be on its power supply. Permanent repairs to the hydro vault are expected to begin over the next few days.

“We’re going to be investigating types of fixes that can occur … and then we’re going to make a determination after that,” Buchan said.

Livey said the backup generator on the roof “not part of the operation,” and that they’ve “had to bring in these extra generators to supplement the fairly heavy load that we have in this building.”

The fire broke out in the basement at around 1:30 p.m. on Thursday. Around 1,500 staff members and others were working in the building at the time.

Two people were treated for smoke inhalation, according to paramedics. They are expected to be OK.

On Thursday, Toronto Fire Capt. David Eckerman said the fire was in an electrical room next to a hydro vault. The fire believed to have been started by hydro crews when their ladder touched high-voltage equipment. Toronto Hydro had to cut power to the room.

“It’s was significantly damaged down there,” Buchan said on Friday.

“We need to replace the cables in order to safely restore the power and hook up the generation. That says nothing about the permanent damage that’s in the area that we need to fix for a more permanent basis.”

Buchan the cause of the fire is still being investigated and the cost has yet to be determined.

Early air quality tests have not shown any danger.

Livey said they’re hoping to have all municipal operations at city hall up by Monday, but added that the city has “alternative sites available for most of our services.”

However, the permanent parking office had to close since it’s near the where the powering up work is being done.

“You can get your permit parking online and we can handle it administratively,” Livey said.

The deputy city manager also said the only people in the city hall building are those working on emergency repair.

Livey said between 1,500 to 2,000 city staff members have been “redeployed” to other work sites or they are working from home.

“I think we’ve lost some business for sure … obviously our productivity is going to be down for sure [today],” he said.

Hester How Daycare Centre, located inside city hall, is closed on Friday, but is expected to reopen on Monday.

The city said its offices and facilities at all other locations are open and operational.

Earlier in the day, members of the public who needed to do business at city hall were asked to call 311 before heading over to the building.

City workers were being asked to get in touch with their managers to make alternate work arrangements.