Ice crashes through Modesto roof (CA)

The Modesto Bee ^ | August 20, 2007 01:14:31 PM

[keat]

Corrina Vargas, 26, was cooking breakfast morning in her mother’s airport district home this morning when she heard an explosion.

Her son, Carlos Mendez, 10, was sitting on a bed in the living room watching cartoons when something came through the roof. A small piece of the debris hit him in the back of the head.

Both ran out of the house, and her mother, Mary Montano, gathered the rest of the adults and children in the house and got them out.

No one was injured by what turned out to be a bowling ball-sized chunk of ice that crashed through the roof.

Police and firefighters cordoned off the home and gathered remnants of the ice chunk Monday morning.

Modesto Police Department spokesman Craig Gunlach said investigators were not sure where the ice chunk came from, but one possibility is that it dropped from a commercial airliner.

“We are in contact with the (Federal Aviation Administration), and they are not aware of where it could have come from,” Gundlach said. “There is no indication it was anything but an accident.”

Gundlach said it didn’t appear to have come from a low-flying plane arriving or leaving the Modesto Airport, which is across the street from the house on Tioga Drive.

“It was just a big old boom, and all that debris,” said Vargas. “I was just stunned. I thought it was a fire from the water heater.”

There were four adults and five children in the home when the ice came through the roof, Gundlach said.

The ice punched a three-foot hole in the roof, broke through a roof truss, continued through the living room ceiling, he said. Had it not shattered as it penetrated the home, it would have landed about a foot from where Carlos Mendez was sitting...

[sit-rep]

lol...

[Political Junkie Too]

The story is confusing...

Grandmother Mary Montano in whose house the incident takes place, mother Corrina Vargas, 26, son Carlos Mendez, 10. Nobody has the same last name.

-PJ

[WildcatClan]

They could start a neighborhood panic running out of the house screaming “ICE” just crashed into the house. They will file a complaint against the airlines and get a nice settlement. They shouldn’t think of it as ice that had no business entering their home, but rather, an undocumented, but hard-working frozen turd.

[YellowRoseofTx]

Her son, Carlos Mendez, 10, was sitting on a bed in the living room

Both ran out of the house, and her mother, Mary Montano, gathered the rest of the adults and children in the house and got them out.

Sounds a little crowded in that house...wonder just how many families are in that house.

[Diver Dave]

Modesto is right under the westbound approach pattern for the San Francisco and Oakland airports. That's right about where planes level off at 10,000 feet before approaching SFO or OAK from the south part of the bay.

Yep. I'm about a mile + from the above location and we see the approaching aircraft all the time. Haven't had anything drop here beyond scrub jay's poop.

[Political Junkie Too]

If you look at flight trackers, www.fboweb.com will link to Google Earth. You can watch a flight in near-real-time on Google Earth from any vantage point. You can see exactly where the flight is (or was 5 minutes ago).

They also have an option for all inbound traffic to SFO. The traffic patterns become very apparent.

-PJ

[Paved Paradise]

Several years ago, a toilet fell out of the sky from some airplane. Weird and rare, but true.

[ccmay]

Grandmother Mary Montano in whose house the incident takes place, mother Corrina Vargas, 26, son Carlos Mendez, 10. Nobody has the same last name.

Married women in Hispanic cultures typically keep their own name and add "de" plus the husband's name. So Grandma might be named Mary Montano de Vargas, while Mom might be Corrina Vargas de Mendez.

Or not.

-ccm

[Political Junkie Too]

Could be, but then why would the reporter try to Anglicize their names? Just to shorten them to fit the article space, or something else?.

-PJ