In the wake of last night’s unforseen deluge (can we stop with the bogus panics now?) there’s been some pretty severe damage to chunks of Civic. The Canberra Center and ANU are both shut down for at least today but I found this comment by Meconium to be particularly worrying:

My girlfriend and I were watching Letters from Iwo Jima in Cinema 1 of Dendy, the 9.30 session. At about a quarter to eleven the sound of rain started to drown out the gunfire, and on the hour the roof sprung a few leaks. It was pouring out of a few places along the midline of the cinema, and soon staff started rushing in with buckets and the film was stopped.

Everyone was told to stay in the building, at first, due to the huge hailstorm, but after ten minutes or so we were told to gtfo. As far as I know it was raining inside every cinema, including the two premium lounge cinemas. Everyone was told that if they present their stub, they would get one complimentary admission. I see an exploitable situation here…

Outside, the ice was piled up and people unfamiliar with these road conditions were driving like idiots. I’m not surprised there were lots of accidents tonight. The hail seemed to end as close as Lonsdale St to the north, and maybe as far as the Uni in the west.

Al Gore was right.

Comment by Meconium — 28 February, 2007 @ 1:46 am

Cinemas are high voltage environments and we hear these stories after nearly every downpour (in this water restricted drought wracked city). How long before someone gets killed?

UPDATED: Al has sent in the following pictures of woe from inside the Canberra Centre: