IRON MOUNTAIN — The roof of a home in Iron Mountain has been damaged by a possible meteorite, reports Sandy Barkel, owner of the home at 500 Houghteling Street.
According to Barkel and her fiance, Fred Jump, they heard a crash Saturday afternoon, but didn’t realize that there had been damage to the roof of the home until Sunday when they returned from a shopping trip and noticed it from the street.
“At first, I when I heard the crash on Saturday, I thought maybe a car had struck the house,” said Jump. “It wasn’t until Sunday when we noticed the roof had sustained damage, approximately 30-inches across.”
At first Jump believed that object that struck the house may have been a chuck of ice, or possibly a meteorite from a meteor shower on Friday evening.
The object may also have been debris dropped from a commercial airliner passing overhead, he said.
“When the object struck the roof, it broke through a half inch of plywood sheeting, and through an inch of the original roof, and through a rafter in the roof truss,” Jump said.
“The roof was redone with plywood sheeting and shingles only a month ago,” said Jump.
“The amount of force of whatever hit the roof, if it had hit a person, they would have been killed instantly,” he said.
“If it had struck a car, I believe the car would have been totaled,” continued Jump.
“The odds of an object such as a chunk of space debris (ice) or a meteorite striking are phenomenal.
A search of the surrounding yard following Monday’s rain, yielded the object, which turned out to be a possibly a chunk of meteorite from Friday’s meteor shower.
(Original headline: IM home damaged by meteorite )
