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12/7/2025
WT Staff
 Got water questions? Give us a call at 877-52-WATER (877-529-2837), or email us at info@wtny.us
Monday, Dec 15, 2025 820 am EST
Future-proofing the towers: Elevator technology and drone deliveries in 416 Toronto
It happened again, not for long, but it happened. The power blinked out in Canada's capital last night. Backup lighting kicked in to dimly illuminate hallways and stairwells, while the elevators automatically descended to ground, delivering riders to the lobby on the last surge of power available. If you happen to be at home when it happens, you will have access to your fully charged backup battery supply to keep your mobile phone going. You will have your bulk water reservoir handy in the bathroom for washing up and flushing toilets. You will have a gallon of bottled water per family member for daily drinking and hygiene. Of course you have a supply of essential medicines and canned food on hand, and with the community you have fostered with the neighbors on your floor, you will have someone nearby to call on, in a time of need.
WT continues to investigate what household water and power resilience looks like at high density. In Part 1: The case for balconies, our sources recalled the major electrical grid blackouts of 1998 and 2003, where major cities lost water and power services for an extended period of time. With planning and action, highrise residents can be ready and equipped, socially connected and supported ahead of the next outage.
Key trends and considerations:
- urbanization trend - the global population is steadily shifting to the cities
- compact dwellings trend - homes are getting smaller with less storage space
- rental trend - more dwellings are rented than owned, up to 70% tenants in the highest density areas of Toronto
- singles and couples trend - more homes are occupied by just one or two residents
- taller tower trend - developers continue to build higher, increasing the number of citizens that will become isolated and vulnerable in power outage scenarios
UN Population Division data (2025) indicates 57.7% of the global population (4.7 billion) people are now residing in cities. US Census Bureau defines urban as, "densely developed residential, commercial, and other nonresidential areas". The urban population count surpassed rural numbers for the first time in history in 2007. For context, the early counts in Canada showed the population 84% rural. In the 1861 Census of the territory that would later become Canada, householders were asked how many acres of land they owned, how many animal units and total horsepower on the property. 164 years later, the population of Ontario is 86% urban. The US reports similarly, 80% of US citizens lived in cities as of the 2020 Census, with the highest percentage, 88.9% urban in the Western Region.
Cities are challenged to absorb the steady flow of migrants and visitors, up to 2 million hotel guests at any given time in Toronto. Urban Planners and Engineers have a critical role to ensure a smooth flow of supplies in and waste materials out of the high density core areas. With taller towers, all people and supplies entering and exiting at ground level, jams are inevitable. Highrise tenants, whether they know it or not, are far more vulnerable to power grid failure than their ground level, small town and owned-home relatives. In this context, we explore the steps to resilience.
Step One: Fostering a sense of Community
It should be noted here, urban high density resilience is not the same as "prepping", we have been informed by the moderators of r/preppers that this topic of urban survival during a power outage does not fit the prepper community, where households scramble to the rural areas and arm themselves to defend their canned goods from roving bands of looters. On the other hand, we are addressing urban tenants and visitors, with a heads-up that if put to action, may just keep you safe and sane through the next major ice storm or grid-crushing heat wave.
"Community is a group of people who agree to grow together."
Simon Sinek, The Optimism Company
Three years post-pandemic, Toronto is buzzing with activity, citizens and visitors getting together face-to-face once again, even to dropping the mobile phones in a corner to engage fully in socializing. Communities are solidifying and thriving, naturally forming from millions of people in close proximity. The pedestrial majority here are so willing to take a moment to help a neighbour, even a stranger, and the effect is contagious. Neighbours are becoming friends. Goodwill is tangible, you see it everywhere. "Basic human needs, met in community" is the way one experienced professional engineer coins it. We have arrived.
Greg Allen, P.Eng has served half a century planning, innovating and executing better buildings in and around the Greater Toronto Area. Principal at Rivercourt Engineering is an ardent advocate for self-sufficient community design. He could not tell us what year he first raised the issue of risk and vulnerability that comes with power failure (and water failure) at high density. "I cannot recall the first time I brought the lack of preparedness to city planners but this has been a concern of mine for 50 years," he writes.
I recall a presentation I did for an Ontario Homebuilders Association conference in 1998, shortly after the largest ice storm disaster in Eastern Canada that linked sustainable design and self-sufficiency strategies to resiliency.
Allen continued to raise the very real risk of power failure, not if, but when. The need for mitigation, so many residents vulnerable in the towers is a serious subject that had not been adequately addressed by planning professionals. He wrote to WT, "A week before the 2003 power outage, I had asked the senior partners in a large engineering firm how they were preparing their major clients for a power outage that I said was imminent." The answer became apparent a week later when Toronto went dark; no one was prepared.
Warren Davies, the owner of Apple Elevator in Toronto told us how the East Coast Blackout rolled out in his corner. In 2003, Davies worked as an Otis elevator technician, modernizing the lifts at City TV on August 14. Just after 4pm that Thursday afternoon, the power suddenly cut, everywhere. Davies told WT, black smoke hit the downtown core as all the backup generators lurched to life at once. Then the radio calls started. First Canadian Place on King and Yonge had priority for elevator service calls. Davies described a nightmare. Hundreds of people were trapped in elevators, many of them waited hours to be rescued. The worst of it was in the commercial towers, where high speed elevators stopped inside the shear wall, the solid concrete shafts bypassing lower floors, having no doors for access. Thankfully, elevator controls have advanced significantly since 2003. Davies says he was first to bring the new technology into Toronto in 2006, Motion Controls in California offers self-rescue technology, with Traction Auxiliary Power Supply (TAPS) backup power to ensure riders are returned safely to the ground floor and automatically released from the car.
Allen remains critical of Toronto's Resiliency Plan, noting the lack of substance, a string of public chats, an absence of professional discourse and diligence. "I am disgusted", he writes. "Natural and human-caused disasters will increase unchecked."
Step Two: Rooftop access
Once again, the private sector leads with technology, in this instance, the ability to deliver critical supplies when the normal route is cut off. Volatus Aerospace merged with Drone Deliveries Canada in 2024, acquiring the first company running Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations with drones in Canada. Greg Colacitti a founder of Drone Deliveries Canada, established in 2014. Colacitti explained to WT, his partners were looking for a game-changing technology, the idea for DDC catalyzed by a tragic death in a remote Ontario First Nation, all because an oxygen tank could not be delivered on time to save the life of a young boy.
The original intent of DDC was to build a logistics platform to deliver packages by drone in Canada, says Colacitti. In order to achieve this goal, the founders researched Transport Canada regulations. To be approved for autonomous deliveries along a determined route, many miles out of the sight of the operator, the delivery drone would have to be well equipped with redundant motors, a parachute and radar system to satisfy Transport Canada's safety requirements, covering ground risk and air collision risk. The development of drone delivery routes extensive planning and testing was successful, deliveries of packages to remote sites was approved.
Colacitti said, "We had to crawl, then walk before we can run", giving a nod to the regulator. Transport Canada has been pro-active and engaged, allowing for the adoption of drone delivery routes in remote locations first, the crawling stage. This step accomplished for ten years now, the walking stage is underway with suburban delivery. Volatus supports Haultain Health Region in Ontario, running medical lab test packages back and forth between hospitals, flying 300 to 350' above ground level over a 14 km route from Milton to Oakville. In Alberta, Volatus runs drone deliveries daily out of the controlled airspace of the Edmonton airport, a project going on two years on a route to a First Nation 10 km away.
Colacitti explains, "We manage our drone routes, including dedicated "drone corridors", through ground-based and onboard detection systems. Our drones transmit real-time telemetry to our Operations Control Center (OCC), where Kongsberg geospatial software provides our pilots with the situational awareness required to safely navigate in both controlled and uncontrolled airspace. Cybersecurity is a key consideration in BVLOS drone operations. Volatus mitigates this through high-level encryption across all communications with our OCC, along with multiple layers of system redundancy on both the drone and OCC side to ensure safe and resilient operations."
WT asked when we may expect to see Volatus drones making deliveries to the towers in Toronto, could deliveries be made direct to balconies? Business to business is the more likely model, landing on the rooftop is a possibility, Colacitti says, but that is still a few years away. Complications occur with flight close to the buildings, so devices would have to be added by the builder to make balcony delivery possible.
WT asked how many drones could be available for emergency deliveries. Colacitti said Volatus is moving into manufacturing the drones, as a Canadian home-grown solution with all Canadian parts. "Our current fleet includes two Condor XL aircraft", (20 ft, gas powered units with 400 lb payload capacity), "and approximately a dozen Canary systems" (5ft diameter units with 8 motors, handling wind up to 22 knots). Both platforms can be scaled as needed to meet customer/operational demand. Production for our drones at Mirabel manufacturing facility (near Montreal is slated to begin) in Q2 2026."
We asked City of Toronto Climate, Environment and Forestry Manager, Dave MacMillan for City of Toronto input on the subject. Mr. MacMillan works with the Toronto Green Standard, the Green Roof program, Toronto's Net Zero emissions goals, stormwater management, flood mitigation and Zero Waste - Circular Economy programs. As for the possibility of drone deliveries to the rooftops, MacMillan advised there has been no discussion.
Big cities need to be concerned not only with loss of power, but water service as well. The City water system runs 80 to 90 psi. Without the booster pumps in each tower, Toronto Water cannot push drinking water above the fourth or fifth floor. Greg Allen says he has raised the need for back-up water supplies at the building level, which could allow a limited water service during a power outage. Allen wrote to WT, "I worked for Engineers Canada to develop the PIEVC protocols and was hired to advise Nanaimo General Hospital’s climate vulnerability and resiliency planning a decade ago. I asked if they had any strategies to contend with curtailment of potable water supply. Their 30 or so staff looked at each other and one spoke: in the last 5 years there were 3 events when they had to order in bottled water and transport their vulnerable patients to Victoria! I suggested a cistern could be in their short-term plans." As for the action on these recommendations, "Nothing yet."
We reached out to Toronto's largest developer, Tridel for comment on whether the new towers in construction are equipped for package deliveries to the rooftops, and other considerations, such as backup generators or water storage for emergencies. No response received as of the date of publication, we will update when we hear back.
(416, 905, 514, 604, 506, 212, 403, 780, 614, 213,313,738)
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