Hudson man left puzzled after bowling ball-sized piece of ice falls into his home
Lonny Piche was nearly half asleep as he relaxed in his Hudson, Wisconsin, home Monday. It was nearing dinnertime on a textbook, blue-sky summer evening. It was a perfect night – until an explosive sound jolted Piche awake.
"I got up, looked out the window, I thought, 'I got to get out there.'" Piche said. "It sounded like something blew up – like, major blow up."
Piche frantically paced to a barn near his home – the source of the noise. While he expected to see flames, he was left scratching his head at the lack of a scene. Then, he looked up.
"I looked up there and I thought, holy Christ, it got hit by a piece of ice," Piche said.
Not just any ice – a bowling ball-sized chunk that exploded into pieces upon impact. The force was enough to go through multiple layers of Piche's metal roof.
"I called a couple of neighbors over. I said, 'I need witnesses, I've got to show you this.' Then I called the sheriff's office," he said. "The first (deputy) came, then another one came, then another one. They all said, 'What's going on here?' They couldn't believe what we were telling them."
Piche says he's glad no one was hurt. In the meantime, he's working with an insurance company that's just as puzzled as he is.
"If you would've heard the boom when this hit – that thing was probably falling for miles through the air. Man, I can only imagine how fast it was going when it hit the building."