Thursday's blustery weather has taken its toll on some windows in a skyscraper near King and Bay Streets, causing broken glass to fall to the street.
Wood and other debris propelled by high winds smashed out three windows at 77 King St. W. -- location of the TD Centre's Royal Trust Tower. The glass crashed to the street, narrowly mising a Toronto Police sergeant and other officers assessing the scene.
"The glass came down about 10 feet away from us. Just a small piece of it," said Sgt. Nancy Van Veghel. At that point, they thought, "It's time to get out of here," she said.
Police blocked off the King Street between York and Bay Streets. The TTC's King streetcar was put on diversion.
The TTC said King Street was re-opened at 3:40 p.m. after workers repaired the panes, with normal streetcar service resuming along King Street. The streetcars had been on diversion in the incident's wake.
Accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers was the business that saw its windows smashed. One person who had been up there to conduct business said the staff there wasn't very happy.
Extreme cold alert
Besides the wind, temperatures are frigid. Authorities have responded by issuing an extreme cold weather alert, activating extra services to help get the homeless in from the cold.
During an alert, more outreach workers head to the streets to bring the homeless to emergency shelters and warn them of the dangers of the cold.
About 170 extra shelter beds are opened to accommodate the influx of those seeking a warm bed.
Anyone who sees a person that appears to be in need of shelter should call the city’s information line at 311 or 416-338-4766. Families needing emergency shelter can call Central Family Intake at 416-397-5637. Phone lines are open 24 hours.
Alerts are issued when Environment Canada predicts a temperature of -15C or lower, excluding the wind chill. Environment Canada predicts temperatures will reach -16C on Friday night, and -15C Saturday.
Snowsqualls
Meanwhile, Environment Canada has snowsquall warnings in effect for an area from Orillia to the Bruce Peninsula and down the western shore of Lake Huron. Dufferin-Innisfil and Waterloo-Wellington counties are under snowsquall warnings.
Sgt. Dave Woodford of the OPP told the media that driving conditions on Highway 400 deteriorated significantly once one got up to the Newmarket area on Thursday afternoon. The OPP temporarily closed some rural roads in the Shelburne area.
In the Fort Erie area, people got to put their snowblowers to work on Thursday morning to dig out from a 15-centimetre dumping. Niagara should see one to five cm of snow on Thursday, with some areas getting more due lake effect snow.
Areas close to the GTA also got dusted by flurries, with one to three cm.
By Thursday evening, the temperature had dropped to -11C, but felt like -21C with the windchill. The overnight low was to hit -15C, with winds dropping to 10 km/h, with a daytime high of -10C predicted for Friday.
Environment Canada had warned of particularly strong winds along the shores of eastern Lake Erie and the north shore of Lake Ontario, but expected them to moderate by the evening.
It also issued windchill warnings for much of eastern Ontario, from Algonquin down to Kingston, and from Lake Simcoe to Smiths Falls.
With a report from CTV Toronto's Jim Junkin
