Residents of a 33-storey St. James Town highrise are still waiting for answers after being left without electricity or water for more than 48 hours.

The power was cut at 260 Wellesley Street East on Tuesday afternoon after a burst pipe caused flooding in the building’s electrical room. About 1,000 residents have been impacted by the outage.

Speaking with reporters on Thursday afternoon, a spokesperson for the property owner of the building said that the Electrical Safety Authority (ESA) conducted tests throughout the day, but could not provide an estimated time for the power to be restored.

“We had assured tenants that after today we would be able to provide a further update as to what we hoped would be the repowering schedule,” Danny Roth said. “We have not yet received the approval from the ESA to make the announcement that we had hoped to be able to make regarding a very soon-to-be-announced repowering.”

“I’m hoping to be able to make that announcement tomorrow, but right now I don’t have the authority to say as to when we are going to be able to repower the building. “

Roth said that as soon as he hears from the city, he will let tenants know when they can expect power and water to return to the building.

“We were disappointed that we are not able today to put out a happier message,” Roth said.

At a public meeting Wednesday night, Mayor John Tory said “everybody is trying really hard” to get the power restored.

“These are unbelievably trying circumstances that people are facing,” Tory said at the meeting. “It is better for us to be able to get all the facts before we are able to tell you exactly what is going to happen in terms of time.”

While an evacuation order has not been issued, Toronto Fire has deemed the building unsafe for use of both electricity and generators. The fire alarm has also been shut down.

“They’re drying the electrical equipment out and testing it … to make sure it’s safe to re-energize,” said ESA senior inspector Paul Murray.

One tenant said he is locking up his apartment for the time being and shifting to a hotel. Edison Bondoc explained that his wife is 39 weeks pregnant and he doesn’t believe the building is safe at the moment. When asked where he would be staying until he finds a room, Bondoc responded: “In my car right now.”

Others are saying they will try to wait it out, hoping that the power will be restored shortly.

“You kind of memorize your route and kind of walk and go through it and hope for the best,” another resident said.