According to local fire officials, the chunk of ice was estimated to have weighed at least 700 pounds.Ī worker walks close to icicles hanging from a wall frozen by low temperatures after a heavy snowfall, in Roncal Valley, northern Spain, Tuesday, Jan. In 2017, a man in Midway, Utah, was killed by falling icicles while he was cleaning a building's window. Such icicle-falling dangers forced the closure of multiple streets in New York City in 2014, when a brief warmup led to icicle projectiles rocketing toward the ground from the top of the 1 World Trade Center building, a drop of 1,776 feet, according to The New York Times. The association pointed out that, "If you're tasked with removing these hazards, make sure you cordon off the area to ensure pedestrians don't walk into the path of operations." "Falling icicles can become weapons, particularly if falling from higher elevations on buildings, awnings, etc." die from falling icicles each year," SIMA shared in 2016. "Reports claim at least 15 people in the U.S. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)Īlthough falling icicles not an overly common cause of fatality, the Snow & Ice Management Association (SIMA) reported that over a dozen reported deaths per year can be blamed on falling ice from buildings. Icicles form on a window outside a house after a heavy snowfall in Oberhof, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. While not every icicle formation represents poor construction quality or a need for massive renovations, Wistar said that some building owners wisely apply substances such as electrical heat tape to the roof's eave in order to provide extra warmth along the edge of a roof, thus preventing the freezing of the meltwater. "So, step one in preventing icicle problems is good quality construction with plenty of insulation between the heated living space and the roof." "Nothing can be done about the melting from sunshine, other than physically removing snow from the roof, but the better a building is insulated under the roof, the less heat will be able to melt the snow from below," he said. That's when worries should arise, Wistar said. You'll often find icicles forming when that snow is melted by direct sunshine then refrozen when air temperatures dip below freezing.īut you could also find icicles when heat escapes from inside your home and melts that snow from the interior. Icicles form on a window outside a house in the Thuringian Forest near Gehlberg, Germany, Saturday, Jan.
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