‘Total shock to the system’: Residents and families scramble days after emergency evacuation from retirement home

Officials with a London retirement home say they're completing repairs as soon as possible after a flood earlier this week. CTV’s Bryan Bicknell reports.

The operator of a flooded-out six-storey retirement home in downtown London, Ont. said they’re working diligently to get people into accommodations as quickly as possible after a sprinkler pipe burst on the top floor this past weekend.

Oxford Living, which operates Maple View Terrace on Horton Street, says 74 people had been living in the assisted living retirement home when the pipe burst Sunday afternoon.

Among them was Keith Currie’s 90-year-old mother. He’s since been back and forth, and up and down several flights of stairs, retrieving her belongings.

“It’s been an interesting week. I left my mom, visited her on the weekend, left her at seven in the morning, and three o’ clock in the afternoon the place had flooded. She gave me a call, said the bells were ringing, it was noisy, she wasn’t sure. By 8:30 [p.m.], she was out off [Highway] 401, eating pizza in a hotel room,” Currie explained.

Maple View Terrace staff and the London Fire Department executed an emergency evacuation when the incident occurred. Residents say with the elevators in the building inoperable, they were physically carried down several flights of stairs by firefighters.

On Thursday, the building was a beehive of activity with anxious family members racing to retrieve their loved one’s belongings and trying to find them places to stay in the short term.

Steve McNeill said the experience has been overwhelming for his elderly mother-in-law.

“For my mother-in-law, who’s 94, my gosh, ‘Where am I? Who am I?’ It’s so confusing, right? When you move someone that age, they just, oh my God, it’s a total shock to the system,” said McNeill.

Oxford Living declined an interview request from CTV News, but issued a statement, which said, in part:

“Restoration and repairs to the building have already begun, and we are working diligently to complete them as quickly as possible. In the meantime, we are collaborating closely with the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority (RHRA) and Ontario Health atHome to develop comprehensive care and relocation plans for residents,” signed Anthony Guidoccio, chief operating officer for Oxford Living.

The statement also said so far, about one third of the 74 residents have been settled into new accommodations.

Many of the residents have been temporarily relocated to the Best Western Stoneridge Inn in south London, including 92-year-old Winnie Van den Bosch, a 10-year resident of Maple View.

“That was kind of scary,” she said.

Van den Bosch, who uses a wheelchair to get around, said she was rescued from the fifth floor by firefighters.

“And I thought, ‘How in the world are they going to get me down?’ But they had a special chair and really good belts around me. There was one man at the bottom of me, and one on top of me, and step by step, they got me off the fifth floor,” she explained.

In the meantime, residents and families are not sure when or if they’ll be back at Maple View.

“Well, it’s three or four months, that’s what they’re saying. But, you know, it’s 2025, post-pandemic, who knows how long it’s going to be, right,” said Keith Currie.