Explosion investigation continues as businesses get back to work

“I thought I was out of business. I thought this time here we go. I wasn’t sure because downtown, you know, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

One building immediately adjacent to the former Achillion Restaurant sustained significant damage and that was UNBC’s Wood Innovation Research Centre. Fire has gotten in behind the cladding on the west side of the building.

“You know, sure, our building was impacted, but we’re also thinking about the people that were impacted by the events of the day itself,” says Matt Wood, Director of Communications for UNBC. “And we send our very best to them, of course. As for the building, it’s early days. We’ve seen photos, we’ve got imagery. We know that there was extensive damage to that wall before the fire did get in behind the cladding of the building and crews did an exceptional job dealing with it. But still, fire, fire does damage and it did damage to the west wall of that building.”

The building has been shut down and what happened inside will also require work.

“We do know that the sprinklers inside the building went off. So we’ll have to assess the damage inside and see what has happened there. So certainly the research program is going to be impacted by how much and for how long. We don’t know. On the plus side, the post-secondary community in BC is so tremendous. We’ve already had some outreach from a couple of organizations around the province, other institutions that have said, however, we can help will help,” says Wood.

In the meantime, downtown businesses are forging ahead with most of the yellow tape lifted and Downtown Prince George recounts what merchants are saying.

“They very quickly got to work to be able to secure their businesses and put the plywood and resourceful, you know, getting lots of help from the community and from friends and from family,” says Colleen Van Mook, Executive Director for Downtown Prince George. “Let’s get these boards up. And now they’re data looking at the aftermath. And most of them are just grateful. They’re saying it could have been worse.”

And, despite the wreckage and the damages to their businesses, the merchants plan to celebrate the fact it wasn’t worse this weekend.

“I’m really pleased to say that the Fourth Avenue will be coming together. They were planning a shop, the block party for this Saturday. And right away, everyone thought, you’re not going to do that. And they said, Yeah, we are, because this is important to us, even more so now. We definitely want to invite the community to come down.”

But while Randy Wilson’s business remarkably weathered the blast unscathed, he says something needs to be done about the downtown. And his frustration is obvious.

“We’re just trying to make her business go and try to make the downtown go because we like it downtown. There’s nothing wrong with that other than the fact we’ve we house these people, we clothe these people. Everything we have for these people is downtown. We don’t want them downtown until that happens, until that’s dealt with, it’s not going to change.”

RCMP are thanking those who came forward with videos from the crucial period of the explosion, many of which came the businesses themselves.

by Cheryl Jahn

Explosion investigation continues as businesses get back to work

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