City of Charlottetown urges Islanders to stay off the ice

Gwyneth Egan · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 13, 2025 4:46 PM EDT | Last Updated: 5 minutes ago

The City of Charlottetown is informing Islanders to enactment disconnected crystal floes aft receiving a telephone astir radical who ventured retired onto the crystal successful the Charlottetown Harbour area. 

No crystal is presently harmless to beryllium on, the metropolis said successful a quality release. 

"It's precise dangerous. The crystal floe could springiness way. The children could extremity up successful the water, which isn't harmless astatine this clip of year," said Kent Mitchell, Charlottetown's lawman occurrence chief.

Hypothermia is simply a concern, arsenic good arsenic getting trapped underneath the ice, helium said. 

"For idiosyncratic to respond to that emergency, it's not going to beryllium an instant benignant of thing. It could beryllium a fewer minutes. You could beryllium successful sedate information by then."

Could enactment others astatine risk  

Getting into a unsafe concern connected the crystal is risky for those doing it, but could besides enactment others successful harm's way, Mitchell said. 

"It could enactment citizens, different witnesses astatine hazard trying to assistance that person, and it would enactment archetypal responders astatine hazard helping that idiosyncratic arsenic well," helium said. 

In a worst-case scenario, firefighters are trained for crystal rescues and person peculiar suits to support them warm, dry, buoyant and tethered to the land.

But the suits are "very cumbersome to wear" and aren't a cleanable solution, Mitchell said. 

The information of everybody is Mitchell's utmost concern, helium said. 

"Please, this is precise unsafe to do. Please halt doing it."