Guests of the upscale Prestige Oceanfront Resort in Sooke had to brave subzero temperatures on Friday night after it flooded.
Island resident Heather Doerksen says she was woken up around 3 a.m. Saturday morning by the hotel’s emergency alarm.
“We stepped outside our hotel room to see if other people were leaving, to see if it was real,” she told CHEK News on Saturday.
Once she saw that the alarm was legitimate, she began to make her way out with other guests.
As she was walking down a stairwell, she says water was “pouring from the ceiling” into massive puddles.
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(Heather Doerksen)
(Heather Doerksen)
She believes the leak started on the fourth floor, soaking hallways and other areas beneath.
Guests were set up outside the hotel in freezing temperatures as first responders reviewed the scene.
Doerksen was given extra robes from the hotel to keep warm before guests were allowed to return to the resort’s flooded lobby to escape the cold. That’s when the dramatic video was taken.
“It’s like we were treading water. It was up to our ankles,” she said.
While guests were waiting in the lobby, Doerksen says firefighters were escorting people to their rooms if they needed necessities, like medications.
She says she’s grateful for the efforts of first responders, and adds that even though there was “substantial” damage to the hotel, it seems like staff were responding as best as they could.
Doerksen says she’s not sure what caused the flooding, but that firefighters at the scene were saying it may have been a frozen pipe that burst.
CHEK News has reached out to the Sooke Fire Department and the Prestige Oceanfront Resort for further details.
This story will be updated if a response is received.
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Adam Chan
