Slippery streets and sidewalks made getting around a dangerous task over the weekend, and weather officials say we haven’t seen the last of the icy surfaces yet.
Though temperatures are expected to stay above zero every day this week, freezing overnight temperatures will keep city streets in an icy grip, said Environment Canada meteorologist Blair Morrow.
“At least for the next week or so, the trend we’ve been seeing will continue,” he said. “I can’t see it going away any time soon.”
Salt and ice scrapers were flying off the shelves at many area hardware stores, many of which ran out of stock over the weekend.
“Ice melter has been going like crazy,” said Kingsway Canadian Tire store manager, Amy Shakespeare. “We’re totally out of stock.”
A city bylaw forces property owners to chip away any accumulated ice within 24 hours. If not, owners could be slapped with a $100 fine.
If ice has built up dangerously in front of a business, city officials encourage reports to bylaw enforcement.
Most Canadian Tire locations will be re-stocked with ice-centials today.
Sand is provided free by the city, available at over 100 community leagues in outdoor boxes.
While the city’s busiest hospitals treated patients with injuries from slips and falls and ice-related motor vehicle accidents, numbers surprisingly did not rise much.
“The Royal Alexandra and the U of A didn’t have any Saturday, which was astounding,” said an Alberta Health Services spokesperson.
