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At times, 100 pails caught leaks, Elliot Lake mall Zellers manager says

One retired mall patron took photos of the damage in case 'something happened to us'
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The Algo Centre Mall in Elliot Lake is pictured in this file photo taken after the 2012 roof collapse. Sudbury.com

Shortly after being named manager of the Zellers location in the Elliot Lake mall in February 2007, Brian Cuthbertson began photographing water and other damage throughout the department store.

He took more than 200 pictures in the years before the Algo Centre Mall collapsed on June 23, 2012, killing two women and injuring dozens of people.

On Tuesday, he told a judge about more than 30 of those pictures, as he testified at the trial of the former engineer who inspected the mall a few weeks before the third level parking deck collapsed

Robert Wood has pleaded not guilty to two counts of criminal negligence causing death in connection with the death of Lucie Aylwin, 37, and Doloris Perrizzolo, 74, and a single charge of criminal negligence causing bodily harm.

Cuthbertson, the ninth witness called by the Crown since the trial began three weeks ago, provided details about pictures he shot between 2007 and 2011.

He also talked about his frustrating efforts to get mall management to make repairs to the ceiling in numerous areas of Zellers, one of the mall's two anchor stores.

The principle reason he took the pictures was to record losses, damage and man hours for his reports, he explained to Sudbury assistant Crown attorney Marc Huneault. 

In 2007, Cuthbertson said he noticed missing ceiling tiles and pails in certain areas of the second-level store collecting water.

When he first took over, there were nine leaks throughout the store, but the leakage got worse over time so that by 2008, when contractors were redoing the roof, there were more than 100 pails on the store floor, he said, indicating things "got really bad."

"The work wasn't completed by the contractor, the mall took over the work and tried to repair it," leaving 15 to 16 leaks around the store, he said, later adding he was told the contractors were "basically fired."

Cuthbertson said the leaking caused damage and stains to the ceiling tiles, which would drop to the floor because they were saturated with water, rusted metal gridding, and penetrated drywall which fell off the ceiling.

Counters of merchandise had to be covered with blue tarps so items weren't damaged, and areas of the store had to be blocked off because of concerns about customers slipping and injuring themselves, he told Superior Court Justice Edward Gareau.

Cuthbertson said he took some of the photos of the number of buckets, water coming down from the roof and splattering on the floor, and closed-off areas to show his head office "why I was losing sales."

He described a "near miss" around 2008 when a piece of the saturated ceiling dropped as he was cleaning up fallen tiles and water.

"I was talking to the mall manager when a tile dropped out and almost hit me."

Cuthbertson said when you looked inside the damaged ceiling you could see wire mesh and insulation, and in some spots concrete supported by pillars and girders.

It appeared like water was coming in through seams in the concrete, and you could see scaling and rusting on beams, he said.

He described a 15-by-20-foot piece of drywall that fell near the front entrance leading into the mall during business hours in 2008.

Cuthbertson talked about bladders that collected water and dripped it through hoses into buckets in 2009, a store security camera that was "knocked out" by a falling ceiling tile, rusting grid work in 2010, damaged drywall and leaking problems in 2011, and leakage in other areas of the mall.

During cross-examination by defence counsel Robert MacRae, the witness agreed that the leaking water was repeatedly brought up at the store's monthly meeting of its health and safety committee members.

He testified that he would contact his head office, which would contact the mall manager about repairs, but nothing was "completed in a timely manner" or to their satisfaction.

"Nothing got done," Cuthbertson said, indicating he dealt with three different mall managers in a short period of time and was never notified of the changes in management.

"You must have been very frustrated," MacRae suggested. 

"By that time, yes," the witness replied.

On Tuesday, the court also heard from another Elliot Lake resident who took photographs of the mall because of concerns about the damage.

Retiree Gilles Desaulniers, who met his friends there every day for coffee, shot the pictures in the food court and lottery kiosk area on the second level at the end of March 2012.

"It (the damage) was quite bad," he said, describing an opening in the ceiling near the kiosk as "the worst place."

Desaulnier said he photographed the damage because he and his wife "knew something was going to come down" as there was leaking all over the place.

We "felt if something happened to us they could fight for us," he testified.

The trial continues Wednesday at the Sault Ste. Marie courthouse.


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About the Author: Linda Richardson

Linda Richardson is a freelance journalist who has been covering Sault Ste. Marie's courts and other local news for more than 45 years.
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