Wednesday 19 January 2011

handy hints for travellers 15: stay away from building edges!


The mild conditions have a regular result: snow melts during the day, freezes at night and is then covered with a fine layer of snow by morning - making completely lethal surfaces. And - equally dangerously - snow melting from roofs forms icicles which freeze, then melt again and crash to the ground.

One of my colleagues got hit by a falling icicle over the holidays, which broke her nose (this, she said mournfully happened immediately after her dog swallowed a toy and nearly died.) Still, she continued, at least it didn't fall on her head. Which is why random barriers appear on the street, and people tend to walk on the outside edges of pavements.

2 comments:

  1. I couldn't agree more! I've also come across men on the roof pounding them to make them fall, the same with snow sometimes. It can be very dangerous if a bunch of them fall down on you. I've even seen news reports about how dangerous it is, cars being damaged, etc.

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  2. Hello Moscow on the Line,

    Anker Nielsen in Gothenburg Sweden has been working on the science of icicle prevention.

    Russia is rarely proactive about safety, but I wish cities' budgets would be allocated more to innovation, insulation, and building drainage.

    With Newton it was the apple, with Russians it's the icicle, but few good ideas result!

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