HALIFAX – A major commercial building in downtown Halifax is without power for a second day.
The building at 1801 Hollis Street has been without power since Thursday and Michael Ewald, regional manager for CREIT Management, says power is not expected to be restored until Saturday.
Ewald told Global News the building was crippled by an electrical component failure. He didn’t elaborate on the situation and also didn’t comment on the cost to repair the failure or contingency plans for the future.
The building is normally bustling with activity, but it came to a standstill Friday. Many employees worked from home and customers arrived at the building only to turn away when they say signs that the building was closed.
HSBC spokesperson Sharon Wilks tells Global News that “There’s no power to the branch, so our branch is not open”.
Get breaking National news
Wilks says customers can still access telephone banking or other ABMs that are not in the impacted buildings.
“We’ll be happy to see them again at the branch once power is restored,” she said.
The power failure also affected the federal courts, which has offices are located on the 17th floor of the building.
Elizabeth Caverly, director for the federal courts in Halifax, says the main concern is for self-represented litigants who do not know the office is closed.
Caverly says members of the public can still call the courts, since phone lines have been re-directed. But, without access to computers and servers inside the building, staff can’t call people who have deadlines coming up and give them advice about what they need to do.
Members of the public are asked to visit the following websites for more information:
Federal Court of Appeal: www.fca-caf.gc.ca
Federal Court: www.fct-cf.gc.ca
Tax Court of Canada: www.tcc-cci.gc.ca
Court Martial Appeal Court: www.cmac-cacm.ca
While Caverly says that the power outage hasn’t been too bad, she adds going one more business day without power will be problematic.
“We would have to access our business continuity plan and go to an alternate site,” she said, though she hoped that wouldn’t be the case.
Ilda Dinis, media spokesperson for Northbridge — a property and insurance management company located in the building — says calls have been re-routed.
“Our contingency plan has been enacted and we’re letting brokers know what is going on. It’s business as usual,” she said.
Dinis adds that employees are working from home for the time being.
Chris Brooks with the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA), says that employees are working from home to the best of their abilities while power is out.
Employees still have access to their Blackberry phones, but Brooks says that there are some secure servers inside the building that they cannot access.
“Obviously it’s an unfortunate situation, but people are coping and doing the best they can to make sure they keep up with their files,” he said.
He adds that it is hard to say whether the power outage will set the agency back on its files.
Below is a list of some of the companies listed inside 1801 Hollis Street:
ACOA
Burchells
Wickwire Holm
HSBC
Northbridge
OwensMacFadyenGroup
Maritimes and Northeast Pipeline
Certified General Accountants Association of NS
EastPoint
Lasik MD
Marsh Canada Limited
Comments