Extreme cold, water leak cause parkade ceiling break: West Edmonton Mall
"We looked up and we saw that the ceiling had fallen,” shopper Catherine Hiller said. “My first thought was, 'I hope there are no people or cars or underneath.'”
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A recent break in the ceiling of a West Edmonton Mall parkade is the result of wayward water and frigid cold, a spokesperson for the shopping centre says.
Edmonton resident Catherine Hiller told Postmedia she was Christmas shopping at the mall on Wednesday before she encountered the scene.
While trying to exit the parkade with a friend at about 7 p.m., the pair found several vehicles queued up near the damage, and construction blockades propped up nearby, Hiller said.
“We looked up and we saw that the ceiling had fallen,” she said. “My first thought was, ‘I hope there are no people or cars underneath.’ ”
While unsure when the incident occurred, Hiller suspects it’s related to Edmonton’s recent run of brutally cold weather.
According to the mall, she’s not wrong.
“With the extreme cold weather, a water leak occurred causing freezing and cosmetic damage to the stucco parkade façade,” a West Edmonton Mall spokesperson said in an email statement. “No injuries or vehicle damage occurred and there is no structural damage to the parkade.”
Neither Edmonton Fire Rescue Services nor city police received calls for assistance in response to the incident, both organizations said.
The city has been under a wave of chilly weather that’s seen temperatures plummet below -30 C and an extreme cold warning from Environment Canada over the past few days.
The mall wouldn’t say when or where the damage occurred, but on Thursday afternoon Postmedia found a ground-level section of the parkade still blocked off near entrance 56 on the west side of the mall. Inside, slabs of building material lie stacked below an opening in the ceiling.
“The impacted area will be cleaned and back to normal shortly,” the mall’s spokesperson said. “West Edmonton Mall is open for business as usual.”
For Hiller’s part, the incident was likely a freak occurrence, but concerning nonetheless. It won’t stop her from returning to the mall, she said, but she will probably park her vehicle in another area on site.
“Whoever’s in charge of that needs to evaluate the incident to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” she said.
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