Hours of freezing rain coated almost the entire region with a thin layer of ice, enough to close and delay schools, and make driving treacherous even for the vehicles that were trying to keep others on the road.  

Bev Nice is a delivery man in Saint John. He was trying to keep his footing, while making deliveries all over the city on Friday.

“If you're going into a house, you have to walk in the snow,” he said. “You can't walk on the driveway, or you're down.”

Pedestrians took to the streets after many gave up on trying to navigate icy sidewalks.

“It is horrible,” said Saint John resident Shelley Williams. “It is so slippery. The sidewalks are horrible. You have to walk on the road.”

There is now another layer of ice all over the Maritimes, leaving cars coated, and windshields needing work.

Freezing rain early Friday morning left a thin coating, just enough to make driving treacherous, especially on rural roads.

One vehicle ended up on its side in the ditch along Ridge Road in Wolfville Ridge, N.S. early Friday. Emergency crews responded to the crash before 7 a.m. but no serious injuries were reported.

In Trenton, N.S., the roads proved even too icy for a Public Works salt truck, which slid down Hampson Street and overturned at the bottom of Main Street, spilling salt all over the road around 9:30 a.m.

Main Street was closed from Forge to High streets for a few hours while crews cleaned up the mess. It reopened later Friday morning. The 59-year-old driver wasn’t injured.

Pictures posted on social media showed another salt truck overturned in a ditch in the Great Village, N.S., area.

Road conditions led to school closures in many parts of the region, including virtually all of New Brunswick.

The weather also caused delays at airports across the region and forced the Halifax Mooseheads to postpone its home game against the Acadie-Bathurst Titan.

With sidewalk conditions deteriorating, some residents are taking matters into their own hands.

“I feel a certain amount of responsibility,” said Brian Goodwin of the Saint John Theatre Company. “I know it's not as good as it needs to be so I just get out and do what I can to help. We'd like people to come in and not slip and fall and not deal with all that.”

Compounding the sidewalk issue in Saint John,is the fact that half the city's sidewalk clearing vehicles are out of service in need of repairs.

And Friday night, the temperature is going to drop like a stone, so residents can expect a lot more ice Saturday morning.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Mike Cameron.