THE SKY IS FALLING!

Nixy

Nixy

Elimi-nistrator
Staff member
So...we had an ice storm last Thursday night and then experienced warm temperatures on Friday and over the weekend. These two things together caused a lot of ice build up on buildings which promptly started to melt and come "unstuck". Ice has been falling off of downtown Toronto buildings since Friday...strong winds today didn't help matters and shortly after the main highway that runs along the south end of Toronto was closed a 4'x4' piece of ice atleast 2" thick peeled away from the CN tower and landed on the highway...CRAZY stuff I tell ya!

http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_8456.aspx
 
They had people wearing hardhats to get to a from a hotel near the tower on Friday...really...when ice is falling from 112 stories a hard hat is gonna do you no good...
 
that would give things a velocity of 73 m/s at impact with ground, assuming each story is 8 feet high and neglecting air resistance
 
shit. i better be careful tomorrow. cab was sliding a little bit on the freeway from yyz to my downtown hotel... i noticed the snow off to the side of the road had a nice ice glaze over it.
 
Nixy said:
They had people wearing hardhats to get to a from a hotel near the tower on Friday...really...when ice is falling from 112 stories a hard hat is gonna do you no good...
Click to expand...


That might depend on how hard the head under the hat is...
 
2minkey said:
shit. i better be careful tomorrow. cab was sliding a little bit on the freeway from yyz to my downtown hotel... i noticed the snow off to the side of the road had a nice ice glaze over it.
Click to expand...

Other than the falling ice everything else is pretty much back to business as usual...and hopefully with the cold weather today the falling ice will be greatly decrease...just the pieces that are already barely hanging on may be an issue.
 
My bad...apparently the highway is still closed due to the risk of falling ice...

Although depending how far downtown your "downtown hotel" really is you may not have much to worry about...they've only really had problems in two main areas is my understanding...the CN tower and King street between Bay and York where the couple big bank building are.
 
Reminds me of the ice storm about 10+ years ago. I was working downtown in a hotel...the streets were pretty much abandoned because of a lack of power..businesses were closed etc.. (Except for certain hotels with generators).

I was walking along a main blvd (René Levesque) and I heard a whoooooshing sound. Looked up in time to see a chunk of ice come off one of the skyscrapers and hit the street close to the sidewalk.

That, my friends, is a sound that will live with me to the end of my days!

The combination of the boom from the impact and the sound of ice shattering and flying into the sides of buildings, frozen cars, mailboxes etc...like so much shrapnel... just astounding!

Hard hats wouldn't cut it...hell, a tank wouldn't have cut it! :eek:
 
We don't have many freeways here. I can think of *edit - five offhand in the GTA. And none of them are named "freeway".

The Don
The Allen
The QEW
The Gardiner
Whatever the one in Newmarket is called.
 
We don't have freeways either. Everything here is Interstate. Either 10, 12 , or 55. That is how you get to and fro around these parts.
 
Freeway tends to be a word for an interstate in a city (take the freeway) Tollways can also be interstates.
 
i seem to recall seeing the term "expressway" last night.

anyway, i tend to think of "freeway" as a general word for the kinda thing that has exits, whereas a "highway" can have cross-streets... at least this is the case in detroit, a world leader in using, as destroying through rock salt and heavy trucks, roads.

but i realize this is canada, and you hate our freedom... :rofl:
 
HIGHWAY: Any road maintained through state or federal funds as part of the highway system. This can be a two-lane country road all the way up to a 16-lane monstrosity in the middle of Los Angeles, and everything in between.

FREEWAY: A four-or-more lane, limited-access highway (can only get on via on-ramps, can only get off via of-ramps, no cross streets or traffic signals). This is a specific type of highway.

EXPRESSWAY: A four-or-more-lane road that has limited access, although not as limited as a freeway. An expressway has cross streets and traffic signals, but business and residential driveways do not empty out onto it. Those driveways empty either onto side streets or frontage roads that go along the expressway.

INTERSTATE: A freeway maintained by the federal government, built to more stringent standards than a regular freeway. The lane width and shoulder width have standards to meet, you must be able to land an airplane on it, etc. It was meant to be able to move the military around the country as quickly and efficiently as possible. But interstates are still limited-access highways of four or more lanes, and thus are freeways.
 
2minkey: If you saw the word "Expressway" you were likely on the Gardiner (west of the closure)

Inky: That's all well and good but all of the "fast roads with limited access" around here are either named "expressway" or "parkway" or simply "way" OR they're Highway X (with the X being a number in the 400s)...so, if "Highway" is in the name I'm pretty sure it's a highway...and I don't see any reason why the ones without highway in the name should be refered to as anything else since the set up and such of them is pretty much the exact same thing. Quite honestly, I'm pretty sure the breakdown you've given is American because the Gardiner Expressway does not have traffic lights or cross streets...it's all ramp access the same as our "400 series highways". Not to mention that we do not have states and thus do not have interstates.

With that said we do have 2 lanes roads that are also highways...people just KNOW the difference when the highway number is mentioned.
 
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