Two Esquimalt apartment buildings home to about 30 residents were evacuated Tuesday morning after a portion of a driveway next to an excavation site collapsed and some shoring on one side gave way.
One of the buildings, home to about half the displaced residents, was cleared for occupation by early afternoon. Word on the assessment of the second building is expected Wednesday.
The excavation, which was within metres of one of the buildings, was for a development underway at Constance Avenue and Admirals Road. Calgary-based Eagle Crest Construction is building Constance House, a six-storey, 83-unit rental development with two levels of underground parking, at the site.
Esquimalt Assistant Fire Chief Neal Widdifield said the fire department received a call between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. from the contractor to say there had been a cave-in from the excavation.
“I believe when they showed up this morning is when they found out,” he said Tuesday. “What you see there is some shoring that’s let go and so we’ve evacuated two buildings.
“We’ve now had some engineers come by — they’ve done an assessment of the building of the slope.”
Geotechnical experts were also called in and WorkSafeBC was at the scene.
The permit for the current foundation work was issued in February.
A B.C. Transit bus arrived at about 10:15 a.m. to take residents to a reception area set up nearby at the Archie Browning Sports Centre.
Resident Conor Gish, who took his own car to the centre, said he grabbed a few belongings and put his two kittens in a carrier before leaving.
He said he doesn’t know how long the evacuation will last and will stay at his girlfriend’s place if need be.
Work at the site started a few months ago, Gish said.
“We’re handling it the best we can,” he said of the evacuation. “I got as much stuff out as they’d let me in the couple of minutes that we had to do so.”
He said he had spent the previous night in Langford and was the last resident to show up at the scene. “I’m lucky they even let me in to get the pets and some of my things.”
Orlena Lucas, who has lived in her suite for 10 years, said she was on a Zoom call for work when she got the alert to leave about 9 a.m. “I had to tell my supervisor ‘I gotta go.’ ”
She said she had heard a loud crash between 6 and 7 a.m. and went out on her balcony to see if she could spot anything.
“I didn’t see anything, but less than an hour later I saw yellow tape and then I could hear the sirens.”
Lucas loaded her cats Blue Boy and Joey into her car and headed for the Archie Browning Sports Centre.
Some residents said they had seen cracks in the driveway before the cave-in, but Widdifield said he couldn’t comment on that.
He said the municipality’s Emergency Social Services would work with the developer to determine the extent of assistance needed for displaced tenants.
Emergency Social Services was at the centre to greet the residents, who were given coffee and lunch and were briefed on the incident by Widdifield.
Shortek Systems Canada, an Alberta-based excavation shoring company that had a sign at the site, could not immediately be reached for comment.
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