Most administrative staff at the Yukon government don’t usually have to worry about falling timber at work.

But that was exactly the danger workers faced when they went to the office last Friday morning at the Jim Smith Building.

The building, which houses the Yukon government’s administrative offices and the legislature, was evacuated just before 11 a.m. Friday after some of the decorative poles out front became loose and fell over during the previous night’s windstorm.

It was up to Russ Hobbis of Bilsten Creek Tree Service to remove the rest of them before they fell into the building.

“Those poles were completely rotted away; there was nothing left at the base of them,” Hobbis said.

After 28 years in business in the Yukon and five years working as an arborist and faller on Vancouver Island, he called the job “one of the riskiest ones I’ve ever done.”

The two poles, which had fallen last Thursday evening, came within 2.4 metres (eight feet) of the building.

“Thankfully, no one was hurt, and there were no damages to the building,” Madison Guthrie, a Department of Highways and Public Works spokesperson, said in an email to the Star last Friday afternoon.

Because of the danger to the building – Hobbis said the remaining poles weighed about 7,000 pounds – the decision was made to send workers home.

“There were still several standing poles as of (Friday) morning and out of an abundance of caution, we have asked all occupants of the Jim Smith Building to work from home for the afternoon,” Guthrie wrote.

“The building will be reopened to Government of Yukon staff on Tuesday.”

Wind speeds of up to 68 kilometres per hour were recorded at the Whitehorse airport late last Thursday night, with gusts diminishing slightly early Friday before ramping up again in the afternoon.

Hobbis was at the scene last Friday afternoon, riding up on the end of a crane to secure the poles from the top.

“I got two slings on it, then I rappelled down it,” he said. “The crane put pressure onto the pole, and then I cut it off at the bottom.”

The crane then swung one of the poles up and out and placed it neatly in the parking lot.

Some of the poles could be removed individually, but some were bolted together.

The Jim Smith Building opened in 1976, and Hobbis said they didn’t know how old the decorative poles were. Because of this, they couldn’t trust those bolts.

“It’s been sittin’ there for 50 years; I wasn’t going to trust those bolts were going to hold that thing together,” Hobbis said.

After strapping all three together, Hobbis got on top of the group of poles. Then he realized how truly dicey the situation was.

“Those posts – and that was three bolted together – were moving in the wind,” he said.

They had to bring in a bigger crane on Saturday to remove the group of posts. Those three pieces together weighed about 4,500 pounds, according to Hobbis.

He brought in RC Cranes for both days.

“They’re the only guys I’d use,” he said. “They’re amazing.”

Because these posts were larger than most trees Hobbis deals with in the Yukon, he had to bring out some other special equipment as well.

“I dug out my old dinosaur,” he said.

He was reffering to his 101 cc Husqvarna 2101 chainsaw from 1990 with a 30-inch bar that he had to go find in his shop and dust off for the job.

“That thing’s a monster,” Hobbis said. “Basically, sounds like a dirt bike when you start it up.”

Afer seeing the rotten wood, Hobbis said, it was a surprise the whole group didn’t go over with the two poles that fell last Thursday night.

Now that all the poles are safely on their sides in the parking lot, people can get back to work.

“The building is open, and operations are back to normal,” Guthrie wrote in an email this morning.