After days of transient living, Hima Rayabaram will soon be able to return to the warmth of her St. James Town apartment.

Rayabaram and her 8-year-old son have been bunking with friends and finding other temporary abodes since she was displaced Tuesday from her 21-floor unit.

“It’s like chaos,” she said. “We changed two places in four days. It is really hard.”

Rayabaram attended a press conference Friday outside the 260 Wellesley St. E. building that tenants were forced to leave earlier this week. Toronto Hydro had shut off power to the 33-storey tower after a burst pipe flooded the electrical room of the building west of Parliament St. — leaving it without heat, lights or water.

On Friday, residents were told power was reconnected and heat was restored, but officials cautioned that water, heat and electricity will not be restored to full capacity for at least another day or two.

“This is really good to know,” said Rayabaram, adding that, “at the same time the management should take care of the building, so that this type of mishaps does not happen again.”

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Deputy Chief Jim Jessop said the Electrical Safety Authority and contractors will now commence suite-by-suite checks before services are fully restored in each unit. The objective is to gradually restore the power so it can be sustained permanently.

Resident at the highrise were cautioned by Jessop not to “start maxing out all of your electrical outlets or your hot water usages because you may have an unintended consequence of setting us back in the progress that we’re making.”

Crews will ensure there are no taps, electronics or appliances left on that could trigger further outages, fires and flooding.

“I anticipate that we will be here until at least Monday, just to make sure that there are no issues,” Jessop said.

Shelter will continue to be provided at the Wellesley Community Centre, which will accommodate displaced residents until at least Monday, Jessop said.

Steve Smith, general manager of the Electrical Safety Authority, which authorized the restoration of power Friday morning, said they were “sure the system is safe and ready to function as intended.”

“Water and electricity don’t mix and so that’s why it’s taking so long,” Smith said. “As we move forward you may find some sporadic outages. We may have to bring the system down, as issues arise, so we can deal with them.”

The building was serving as temporary shelter for 26 of the tenants who were displaced from the nearby 650 Parliament St. building, following a six-alarm fire last August.

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“It was a nightmare all over again,” said Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam of the ordeal faced by those tenants.

Wong-Tam said the incident highlights the deteriorating state of an aging stock of buildings across the city — about 3,400 older towers are in need of constant upkeep, according to her count.

“We’re going to have to do a better job of making sure that the maintenance and ongoing upkeep are there,” she said, adding that property owners must also be held to account for repairs and communicating issues to tenants.

Wong-Tam will be meeting next week with the city manager and the mayor, “to find a way to make sure that buildings of this particular vintage and period are going to be better maintained, so we can prevent these kind of incidents from happening again.”