Threat of falling glass in Calgary's core closes roads and C-Train station

The danger of glass falling from a highriseis hampering Monday morning's commute, forcingauthorities to close several roads in Calgary's coreand C-Trains to skip adowntown station.

Emergency crews were called to the 200 block of Sixth Avenue S.W. around 9:45 a.m. Sunday after glass fell from Brookfield Place.

C-Trains are runningthrough the downtowncore but theyare not stoppingat the First Street station, the city says.

The area around the building was shut down to vehicle andpedestrian traffic, including:

• First Street S.W. between Fifth Avenue and Eighth Avenue S.W.
• Sixth Avenue S.W. between Centre Street and Second Street S.W.
• Seventh Avenue S.W. between Centre Street and Second Street S.W.

A broken pane was found on the 23rd floor of the building,although there are no reported injuries, officials say.

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Fire officials said Sunday that high winds preventedrepair work.

Danger persists

D.B. Thunderchild was trying to get home on the C-Train on Sunday and said the shutdown was a "massive inconvenience," but an understandable one.

"Safety should be top priority, especially if it's the new high rise, if it's a piece of glass that fell off," he said. "Yeah, there's going to be mistakes and that's going to happen but it shouldn't be happening every day there's always an inconvenience."

He referred to the 2009 death of Michelle Krsek, 3, as an example of what can go wrong when when debris comes loose on a high rise.

• Charges laid in case of deadly falling debris

"A few years ago there was a little girl that was killed when plywood plywood or sheet metal flew off the side of a building. It was from the top floors, I know because I was hauling dry wall in that same building and I saw the piece of plywood fly off," he said.

Prior wind storm

Sunday's incident comes almost two weeks after a wind storm ripped through Calgary, sending debris and glass flying from buildings.

The city investigated 17 incidents stemming from that storm, the most serious of which was a shattered window on the Home Oil Tower on Eighth Avenue S.W.

No charges were laid following those investigations.

Winds in Calgary were gusting at 50 kilometres an hour at at around 10 a.m. on Sunday, shortly after the recent incident took place.

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