Underground fire in west downtown Calgary forces thousands to leave home for up to a week

A "freak" underground fire downtown has sparked power outages for thousands of residents, snarled traffic, injured an ATCO employee, and even cut water pressure for some in a large swath of downtown.

An estimated 5,000 Enmax customers and 2,100 area businesses will be without power for as long as a week.

"For those of you who are planning on cooking Thanksgiving dinner today in that area, well you'll have to make other plans, I'm sorry to say," Mayor Naheed Nenshi said Sunday morning.

Gianna Manes, president and CEO of Enmax, said crews have to rebuild the affected electrical system and it's expected power will be back on sometime between the evening of Oct. 15 and Oct. 18.

"The electrical equipment that has been impacted by this fire has had significant damage," she said.

For much of the morning and early afternoon, residents of the area's condo towers and apartment buildings could be seen hauling belongings out of their homes in suitcases, grocery bags, and trolley carts. Others sat on the curbside, waiting for suburban friends or family members to pick them up.

Many of these residents had spent the night in their powerless apartments, fully expecting life would be back to normal when they woke up. It was only Sunday morning, as news began to trickle in, that they realized it might be a good idea to find another place to stay.

Taara Smith sat outside her Calgary Place apartment building, waiting for the friend who has offered to take her in for a few days.

"We all really thought it was going to be a two or three-hour thing," Smith said. "It was only this morning when Mayor Nenshi said 4 to 7 days then everyone freaked out."

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Underground fire in west downtown Calgary forces thousands to leave home for up to a week