What a once-in-a-millennium flood looks like

[robkelk]

Just what we needed to discover during a flood: There are century-old gas canisters buried on Victoria Island — and they could go boom

For folks who don't know downtown Ottawa like the back of their hand, Victoria Island is directly under one of the major bridges connecting Ottawa and Gatineau, and sits between the Supreme Court building (on the Ottawa side of the Ottawa River) and the largest single government office complex in downtown Ottawa (on the Gatineau side). It's also within a couple hundred meters of the downtown hydroelectric plant.

"We're not 100 per cent sure exactly what is in the canisters.... We know for sure that there is acetylene gas. He was using asbestos as a packing material, and they were also using acetone to stabilize the canister," [Chris] Falconi said.

"Very dangerous stuff. Definitely stuff that you don't want to be breathing in, but most importantly, they can actually be highly explosive as well."

And they have to be vented, one at a time.

"Blowing things up in downtown Ottawa typically doesn't go well."

Of course the valves have rusted away. Robot drill to the rescue...