Vladivostok, Russia REALLY Iced In

Better them than us, I suppose. An ice storm this week
crippled Vladivostok, Russia. Photo from Reuters. 

We talked yesterday about how easy the onset of winter has been here in Vermont so far.  

That is obviously not the case everywhere, and Exhibit 1 for a terrible start to the season is Vladivostok, Russia. 

Vladivostok is a port city of about 600,000 people on Russia's Pacific coast a little northeast of North Korea. 

The city is certainly far enough north to get some really tough winter weather on occasion, but for them, this was one for the record books. 

The city had probably its worst ice storm in many decades this week, cutting power to much of the city.  Parts of Vladivostok won't have power for many days. 

Strong winds hitting the ice laden trees has caused a large share of them to collapse

A viral video, shown below, shows a man trying to clear ice off his car, narrowly being missed by a large concrete slab from a high rise that was dislodged by the ice. 

Another scene from icy Vladivostok. Photo from Reuters.

A major suspension bridge in Vladivostok was closed, snarling traffic even further in the city.  The bridge is longest cable-stayed bridge in the world.  

It was closed because big chunks of ice were falling from the bridge cables.  Images from Vladivostok on social media remind me of the Great Ice Storm of 1998 in Vermont, Quebec, New York and Maine.  

Here in Vermont, a few places might get a little freezing rain tonight as some mixed precipitation comes in.  There will probably be some slick spots on roads overnight here and there, but we expect nothing remotely close to the chaos in Vladivostok. 

Videos:

The guy who almost got killed by that falling slab of concrete:

Next video begins with that concrete slab clip, but following that is a lot of other scenes from the icy city: