Ice Tsunamis Damage Lakefront Homes in Minnesota, Canada
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ABC News(NEW YORK) — Massive sheets of moving ice have damaged or destroyed lakefront homes in Canada and northern Minnesota.
In Minnesota, video of the weather phenomenon shows an enormous sheet of ice that appears to be creeping forward, traveling about 15 feet to invade some multi-story homes at Izatys Resort, the community bordering Lake Mille Lacs.
The ice is seen pushing up against some homes.
“It happens because the lake is frozen and then that starts to melt off and starts to become thinner, thin enough in some places that the winds, so strong — and this happened on Saturday — that it started shoving the ice into piles and the piles kept shoving towards the shore, the winds that strong that they pushed them into homes,” explains ABC News’ meteorologist Ginger Zee.
On Friday, 12 homes and cottages in Ochre Beach, which lies along Dauphin Lake in Manitoba, were destroyed by a similar phenomenon, the Winnipeg Free Press reported. Fifteen other structures were damaged.
A state of emergency reportedly was declared in the community.
The creeping ice was several feet high, in many cases dwarfing some of the structures it affected.
The storm lasted about 15 minutes, Clayton Watts, the deputy reeve of the rural municipality of Ochre River, told the Free Press.
“They (homeowners) heard it before they saw it (the ice) coming up their decks,” Watts told the newspaper. “Then it came right in their front windows. It was just a matter of minutes. Fortunately, no one was hurt. We were very lucky.”
No injuries were reported in Minnesota either.
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