City of Winnipeg orders full assessment of Fort Gibraltar after students, teacher injured

City officials have ordered Festival du Voyageur to conduct a full assessment of the Fort Gibraltar site in Winnipeg's St. Boniface area after 18 people — all but one of them children — were injured during a school trip to the site Wednesday. 

The injured were taken to hospital after a palisade — an elevated walkway about five metres high — collapsed while people were on it and under it.

The collapse happened shortly before 10 a.m. Wednesday.

City inspectors as well as provincial Workplace Health and Safety workers were at site Thursday to assess the damage and get a better sense of why the palisade collapsed. 

Following their inspection, the city directed Festival du Voyageur to retain a professional engineer to undertake an assessment of the entire complex for any unsafe conditions and conduct any necessary repairs. 

The site will remain closed until that assessment has occurred and any work that is required is completed. 

Michael Jack, Winnipeg's chief administrative officer, said he anticipates the assessment will be completed soon. 

"They [Festival du Voyageur] are taking this very seriously. We understand they are and so we are assuming they have already taken the steps to retain the engineer and get them on site," he said. 

"I can't predict how quickly those engineers are going to be able to perform their work, but we would like answers very quickly."

The reason for the structure's collapse hasn't been confirmed yet. 

Fort Gibraltar is a 1978 replica of two earlier forts of the same name. The original fort was used as a centre for fur trade commerce and early settlers in Winnipeg. 

The historic site is now owned by the city and managed by Festival du Voyageur, an annual winter event that celebrates the area's fur-trade history.

Most children released from hospital

As of 10 a.m. Thursday, two patients remained in hospital, both in stable condition, said a Shared Health spokesperson.

The children are 10- and 11-year-olds from St. John's-Ravenscourt School who were on a field trip, the school confirmed in a statement. Three of the children were taken to hospital in unstable condition, while the remainder were in stable condition. 

The majority of the injuries were orthopedic-related and none were severe or life-threatening, said Dr. Karen Gripp, a pediatric emergency physician, on Wednesday after the accident. 

The school has brought in counsellors and community crisis workers to support students and staff as needed, said Lindsay Stovel, a spokesperson for the school.

Repairs last done in 2004

The last time repairs were made to the walkway was in 2004 and the last time it was inspected was in 2006, city spokesperson David Driedger said in an email.

"A building permit was pulled in 2004 for repairs to the elevated palisade (walkway), including replacing stringers and treads of stairs and replacing rotten wailers on wall sections," he wrote. "We inspected on April 5, 2006."

Additional work was done in 2013 on sections of the fence connected to the walkway, including removing rotten pickets and beams and replacing them with new wood, Driedger said.

"For clarity, the work under this permit was limited to the fence," he wrote.

A development permit was pulled for that work. Those types of permits do not require an inspection, he said.

In general, the city will inspect a property if it receives a complaint about a hazardous condition, Driedger said, adding the city hadn't received any complaints about Fort Gibraltar, according to an initial search of its records. 

Earlier in the day, Ron Anthony, a wood scientist with extensive experience inspecting historic and other wood structures, told CBC investigators would have likely looked at the joists and beams that hold up the palisade for signs of loose joints and signs of decay in the structure. 

Judging by photos, the pieces of the palisade that fell to the ground appear to be largely intact, which suggests another part of the structure supporting them was possibly deficient, he said. 

"Looking at this, it looks like something focused around those stringers — the longer beams — and then that cross beam. Something was going on there, and that's where investigators more than likely will focus to see if there's deterioration in there or if it was something else that maybe led to that collapse," he said in an interview with Information Radio host Faith Fundal. 

Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham said he plans to talk to city staff about whether the city should be inspecting city facilities used by the public more often.

"I'm hoping to find out today when the last inspection was and just ask our staff that very question: how often are we inspecting our, you know, is it complaint based or is it proactive?" he said.

He's grateful no one was more seriously injured.

"I wish everybody that was injured a speedy recovery," he said. 

"I know that for some of the children, and the adults too, that would be a very traumatic experience for them emotionally, even if they weren't physically injured."