Behold The Awesome Power of Ice

If you’re around and about downtown Charlottetown for the next while, please pay attention to the buildings around you: there’s a lot of ice on the houses and buildings and with the thaw we’re experiencing, there are chunks of this ice falling off. Witness the back window of our VW Jetta:

A big meteor-sized chunk of ice fell of the house next door and right through the back window of the car, shattering it completely. Fortunately there was nobody around when it happened, so there are no injuries to report.

I just got back from dropping the car off at Good Guys Auto Glass across the the CBC on University Avenue. I’ve been watching their television commericals for 15 years during Compass and their advertising investment finally paid off.

Monday, January 7, 2008 - 2:36pm

Comments

Submitted by oliver (not verified) on Mon, 2008-01-07 16:50.

Yikes! Did that impress young Oliver? It seems like one of those events we’re liable to remember our entire lives…although maybe also no big whup, if you and Catherine didn’t get in a tizzy and cars don’t mean much to him.

Submitted by steve (not verified) on Mon, 2008-01-07 17:31.

Wow pete that’s something…its funny its the tenth anniversary of the ice storm here, and just minutes before I saw your photos I interviewed a guy for our CBC afternoon show who was delivering food to shut-ins ten years ago. He talked about a giant slab of ice falling off a downtown office building and splitting a SAAB in two. Behold the awesome power of ice indeed.

Submitted by Cuidhil Meaban (not verified) on Tue, 2008-01-08 08:29.

While living in northern Saskatchewan I was surprised to never seeing an icicle at all until the spring warmup & then it was only for a very brief period. Never seemed to get warm enough to create them. But now that we’re back home I worry about the icicles everytime I let my Chihuahuas out in their yard. I don’t think the Good Guys are able to repair a squished Chihuahua …

Submitted by Peter Rukavina (not verified) on Tue, 2008-01-08 11:24.

To end the day a giant piece of ice — one about 5 times bigger than the piece that hit my car — fell off the roof just outside my office. The building shook.

Submitted by Marian (not verified) on Tue, 2008-01-08 12:50.

Oh shit! That’s your car?

Submitted by Andrew MacPherson (not verified) on Tue, 2008-01-08 14:40.

January rain on PEI seems to me like a newish phenomenon. The winters of my childhood (70s-80s) were, at least as I remember them, long cold seasons.

Submitted by Ann (not verified) on Tue, 2008-01-08 14:52.

Ag Andrew, how quickly one forgets th fabled “January thaw”. I have lived here more than 25 years and have experienced more than a few of them. One year, I planted bulbs in January. Two days later, I was shoveling.

Submitted by Ben Dover says 'it won't hurt' (not verified) on Tue, 2008-01-08 16:21.

Thank the great beyond that this near miss didn’t occur when unloading groceries and/or children. Ice protection/shield may be in order for next year. Or try a search under ‘hot shingles’ which melt ice with an internal voltage device. You really wouldn’t want a repeat of the damage depicted on RUK RUK.

Submitted by Peter Rukavina (not verified) on Tue, 2008-01-08 18:53.

There’s a Compass story tonight on the ice situation in Charlottetown. Brian Higgins interviewed me at the office about my incident.

Submitted by Kevin (not verified) on Wed, 2008-01-09 08:52.

Lucky dude! Imagine that same hunk landing a foot further front or back — the cost of that would be a lot more.