Mystery boom in Kenosha, WI
© Brian Passino/Kenosha News
Police, fire unable to find cause of loud noise

A bit of a mystery sent residents of a Kenosha neighborhood running from their homes Friday afternoon.

Residents of the 6100 block of 31st Ave. just north of Roosevelt Road said that what they believed was an explosion rattled the block at about 1:45 p.m.

"It was loud enough to scare the whole block," said Heidi Carey.

Her neighbor Travis Barstad said there was a loud "boom!" that rattled his house, shaking the couch he was sitting on and frightening his children.

A man working at nearby mobile phone store said the sound was so loud rattling the merchandise — that he quickly went outside to see what was happening, and saw residents down the block walking out of their homes to do the same.

"It was something, man" said Jan Edmark, who said he was working out in his backyard when he heard what he was sure was an explosion.

He ran to the front of his house and saw other people coming out of their houses nearby, and one of his neighbors told him they would call 911.

Edmark believed the blast sound must have come from the basement of a vacant house two-doors down from his house.

But when the Kenosha Fire Department arrived, they could find nothing amiss.

Battalion Chief Ken Schroeder said firefighters inspected two vacant city-owned houses on the block and found no sign anything had occurred in either.

Kenosha Police officers were also speaking to residents along the block to see what they had heard.

Schroeder said there was no evidence an explosion occurred, no damage of any kind, no one injured. He said one resident said he thought the sound was a gunshot.

"There is no way to verify" that anything happened, Schroeder said.