North Side mystery: Where did falling ice come from?
'The whole house shook and it felt like 'Boom!'' says homeowner
The ice chunk cometh.
A large piece of ice fell from the sky Wednesday evening, tearing roofing from a North Side home before shattering into dozens of cloudy ice cubes and ice balls.
(Jean Lachat/Sun-Times)
"The whole house shook and it felt like 'Boom!'" said homeowner Linda Dowd, who was watching "Freaky Friday" with her 11-year-old son Sean when the chunk struck. "We thought at first my son's drum set fell down or maybe the chimney, but it wasn't windy."
What she saw outside, the shattered pieces of ice in her gangway and front yard on the 4200 block of North Wolcott Avenue, didn't really answer any questions.
"We figured the ice fell from the sky," she said.
Dowd's husband Paul called Chicago police, bringing out four squad cars and a visit from a Belmont District sergeant, Linda Dowd said.
Linda Dowd said she was frosted over the $500 deductible her family would be paying on their homeowner insurance. Beyond the exterior damage, she said there is plaster damage in their bedroom next to where the ice struck the roof.
"It's like, why me?" she said. "It's falling out of the sky."
Tony Molinaro, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman, said investigators would track down any planes flying over the home around 8 p.m. last night to see if they sprung a leak. The home, he said, was about 10 miles from an O'Hare runaway.
"Ice is possible but it's an odd time of year for it," he said.
Neighbor Don Wilke walked over to survey the damage Thursday morning.
"It's a one in a million chance it would hit a house like this," he said.