Yolanda Ediza and her family have had to move five times since late August.

The family — Ediza, 54, a personal support worker, her husband Vincente, their 7-year-old grandson, their 28-year-old son and his wife, were among scores of tenants forced to leave their highrise at 260 Wellesley Street E. Tuesday and Wednesday.

Toronto Hydro shut off power after a burst pipe flooded the electrical room Tuesday of the building west of Parliament St., in St. James Town. There’s now no heat, lights or water.

Ediza and her family decided to seek shelter in a warming centre for the victims, set up at the nearby Wellesley Community Centre, which marked the fifth time their family have relocated since a fire broke out in their apartment building at 650 Parliament St. in August. It will reportedly be at least May before that building is repaired and ready to take its tenants back.

“It’s emotionally distressing. I can’t believe this has happened to us again,” Ediza, Wednesday afternoon at the community centre, holding her dog, a toy poodle named Porsche.

Several hundred residents attended an emotional meeting at the community centre on Wednesday night, but there were few answers, as city and fire officials could not say when services will be restored. The Electrical Safety Authority has yet to decide what repairs are needed.

Danny Roth, spokesperson for WPSQ, the company that manages the building, said he expected to have better information on Thursday. Deputy Fire Chief Jim Jessop said the building is safe and right now, evacuation “is not the right thing to do for your safety,” calling getting 1,000 residents out of a 33-storey building “a last resort.”

There are tenants at 260 Wellesley who have stayed in their suddenly dark and spartan building. Cesar Contreras, his wife, Rosia and their two young daughters live on the 33rd floor; late Wednesday afternoon, the voices of his girls inside their apartment were the only sounds heard on the top floor.

Cesar was preparing to take his family out for dinner. For breakfast, they ate cheese and bread, kept cold on their balcony. His 12-year-old daughter, Ashley, said they slept in two beds, with blankets wrapped tight to stay warm. “It was cold, but it’s OK, except the fire alarms kept waking us up,” she said.

Ashley translated from Spanish to English for her Mom. “The hard part was going up and down the stairs,” Rosia Campos said, through her daughter.

Cesar said he was scared walking with Ashley and five-year-old Alyson in the blackened hallways. “They just disappeared into the dark,” he said.

“It took us half an hour to get upstairs.”

Another tenant, a 30-year-old software engineer named Ajay Vijayanarasimha, had just sprinted up 64 flights of stairs to grab a bag of clothes on his way to a friend’s place. He seemed sanguine about the experience. “It is expected, in winter, that pipes will burst, he said, chatting at the front door of his “penthouse” apartment.

Cesar was dreading the walk down, unaware that an hour or so earlier, big yellow lights, were hung with temporary cords down at least one stairwell. He walked down the hall, pointing out one dark stairwell and seemed relieved to see light coming from the a second.

Ediza’s family moved into 650 Parliament two years ago when Ediza brought the others to Canada from the Philippines. After the August fire there, Ediza and her family were evacuated to the same Wellesley Community Centre for two nights before being moved to another community centre in Regent Park for a month, along with other Parliament highrise tenants.

The family was subsequently relocated to a hotel for one month — their moves and accommodations covered by the property manager for 650 Parliament, as was with other residents — and then to 260 Wellesley on Nov. 1.

Ediza — she took the day off work Wednesday to deal with the situation — and her husband were still at the community centre late Wednesday afternoon, waiting for updates and planning to spend the night there if they couldn’t move back into their Wellesley apartment. The centre was providing food and water to tenants and Red Cross staff were on hand.

The cluster of rental highrises in the area — 240, 260 and 280 Wellesley and 650 Parliament, all date back to the late 1960s. Records show the buildings are owned by a variety of entities including Parwell Investments Inc. and Lilsam Inc., all listed at the same 333 Wilson Ave. address. WPSQ, the property management company that runs 260 Wellesley, also operates 650 Parliament.

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City Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 13, Toronto Centre) said Wednesday that Toronto Fire had told her that the electrical equipment is so old that replacement parts have to be custom-made. However, Jessop said that flooded electrical equipment of any age will not properly function.

“We have made it very clear — I did, this morning, directly to the representatives of the owners — some of the owners were here themselves — that we, again, view the well-being of these tenants as being their responsibility, but we’re certainly going to back them up and support them,” Mayor John Tory said early Wednesday

“But we’re also going to make sure they do it,” he added.

Roth said 26 of 1,500 residents displaced from 650 Parliament were living at 260 Wellesley at the time of Tuesday’s flood.

Roth said there was already a repair crew nearby, dealing with 650 Parliament, so they were able to get to the latest crisis quickly. He said it’s not entirely clear what burst the pipe in the sub-basement of the Wellesley highrise, but said it will take another day to run tests to see how much damage has been done.

It has taken time to dry off the damaged equipment, he explained. “By (evening) Thursday we will have a better idea of the damage to the electrical system,” Roth said.

He argued there is “absolutely no linkage” between the fire at 650 Parliament — the Ontario Fire Marshal has still not released a report officially citing the cause — and this week’s flooding at 260 Wellesley.

“It’s a coincidence,” Roth said in an interview with the Star, adding “there’s no relation, operationally or maintenance wise,” between the two incidents.

“It’s a cruel irony that residents in St. James Town are dealing with this again,” Roth said.

“No community deserves this less than the community here,” he went on to say.

Security staff are on-site at the Wellesley St. building to help residents get to and from their units. Fire services requested that the landlord provide at least 31 security guards to check in with residents who chose to stay in their units.

Yasmin Gilani, a 40-year resident of the Wellesley tower, said she was planning to head out and buy groceries Tuesday when the problems started. Someone told her the elevators were out and there was a flood, so she headed back into her unit.

She was later escorted down to the ground floor by building security who had flashlights.

“I was scared and worried about who I could call because my battery had run down on my cellphone,” Gilani said.

When she spoke to the Star she was in the lobby with her sister-in-law, preparing to leave the building. Gilani was headed to go and stay with her brother in Markham.