A living room became an ice box in one home along Dauphin Lake in Ochre Beach, Canada, on Friday.
A staggering tsunami of ice inundated two dozen lakeside homes in central Canada, where the unexpected disaster sent residents in a panic and left some houses completely crushed.
The extraordinary event lasted just 15 minutes Friday as families in Manitoba’s Ochre Beach, a rural community along Dauphin Lake, sat down for dinner or watched TV.
“They heard it before they saw it (the ice) coming up their decks,” local official Clayton Watts told the Winnipeg Free Press on Saturday. “Then it came right in their front windows. It was just a matter of minutes.”
The booming noise — like a freight train — alerted many people and gave them enough time to safely evacuate, Watts added.
“Fortunately, no one was hurt,” he said. “We were very lucky.”
Six homes were completely wrecked while another 14 suffered various damages, according to CBC News.
A home in Ochre Beach, Canada, was inundated with ice after a freak natural occurrence Friday.
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Reports said the ice rose in slow waves along Dauphin Lake’s southern shore — apparently pushed up by wind gusts of more than 35 miles per hour.
Ice floes have come close to the lakeside homes, but never actually spilled onto properties, residents said.
The freak occurrence follows major flooding in 2011 that ruined homes in the community.
“Most (families) were just back to the stage where they were back living in their homes again,” Watts said. “And now this has happened. So they’re pretty devastated right now.”
Families spent the weekend sifting through the ruins and tallying the damage. The insides of homes resembled ice boxes.
Workers use a wheelbarrow to hail away massive mounds of ice that spilled inside homes in Ochre Beach, a rural community in Manitoba, Canada.
“I saw the ice just coming, just moving so quickly,” Dana Billows, a 23-year homeowner, told CTV News.
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She was having dinner with her husband when the ice plowed into the house.
“Bang! The ice came right through the living room,” said Billows, pointing to the giant mound of ice that had pushed its way inside.
Volunteers helped clear away some of the debris, but the disaster has left her unnerved, she said.
The cost of the cleanup remains unclear, and many homeowners’ insurance policies don’t cover ice-related damages, CTV News said.
“Really, I don’t think I want to live here anymore,” Billows said.
