‘Like an explosion,’ large chunk of ice falls through roof of Yucaipa home

24/ 06/ 2021 a las 11:08 | Publicado en Casuística, Daños, Materiales | Comentarios desactivados en ‘Like an explosion,’ large chunk of ice falls through roof of Yucaipa home

By Deepa Bharath | dbharath@scng.com | Orange County Register
PUBLISHED: June 25, 2021 at 1:28 p.m. | UPDATED: June 25, 2021 at 5:26 p.m.

A Yucaipa couple was awakened late Thursday night, June 24, by a large chunk of ice that crashed through the roof of their mobile home and landed on their living room couch. No one was injured.

Charlet Yablonsky, 67, said it was around 9:30 p.m. when she got up from that very couch and went to bed. Barely two hours later, she heard a thunderous explosion.

“It was so loud,” she said. “I literally thought our house has exploded.”

Her path illuminated by a night light, she entered the living room and felt soaked, wet carpet under her bare feet. Then she saw pieces of plywood, insulation and particle board scattered all over.

There was a basketball-sized chunk of ice on her couch. A larger piece appeared to sit atop the hole the ball of ice had blown through the aluminum roof as it crashed down. The ice sat there, leaking.

It’s unclear if the ice fell from a passing airliner on the couple’s mobile home unit in the 12700 block of Second Street. But a number of these incidents have been reported in Southern California and around the country in residences along flight paths.

Two homes in San Bernardino County were hit in similar fashion in 2017 by ice chunks. In November of that year, chunks of ice crashed through the roof and fell in the bathtub of a Chino home. Just a month later, in December 2017, balls of ice crashed through the roof and fell in the bedroom of a San Bernardino home. No one was injured in either of those incidents.

While there is no other explanation for these mysterious visits from balls of ice, Federal Aviation Administration officials have said in the past that they are most likely dropped by airliners when ice forms from a leak in its galley. “Blue ice,” or ice that appears blue in color, would come from an airliner’s lavatory.

The FAA released a statement Friday saying it “follows up on reports such as this and attempts to identify the aircraft.”

“We cannot immediately confirm whether we’ve received a report on this incident from the homeowner, but we are looking into it,” an FAA spokeswoman said.

Yablonsky said it wasn’t possible to see how big the ice chunk was because the couple’s home has a flat roof, but she guesses it must have been sizeable because of how much water leaked as it must have sat there, melting away.

“There were pieces of ice all over the living room,” she said. “There were pieces of ice in the street as well. It soaked our living room and our rain gutter was streaming with water, which makes us think this must have been a pretty big chunk that fell.”

Her husband, David Yablonsky, 80, said he hasn’t heard of any similar incidents in the neighborhood where they’ve lived for the past seven years in a home that has belonged to his late mother since 1987.

On Friday morning, David Yablonsky said he was looking at the sunlight flood his living room through a foot-long hole in the roof.

“We have a skylight we didn’t order,” his wife said with a laugh.

While she did try to find humor in the bizarre situation, Charlet Yablonsky said she still couldn’t get that sound of the ice ripping through her roof out of her head. On Friday morning, the couple had talked to their home insurance company and awaited someone from the company to assess the damage and at least fix the roof temporarily so they would be protected from the elements.

The couple said they had preserved a chunk of ice in a bowl in their refrigerator, but they had also taken photographs of the damage in their living room.

“It’s something unimaginable,” Charlet Yablonsky said. “We’re just grateful we are OK.”

Fuente: Redlands Daily Facts