CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Work began Monday to try to clean up and restore the Ronald McDonald House in the Hyde Park neighborhood after a water pipe burst there a couple of days ago.
The Ronald McDonald House on 55th and Drexel can house 22 families at a time. It offers a place to stay for families who have seriously ill children being cared for at the nearby Comer Children's Hospital.
According to Holly Buckendahl, CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana, there were seven families in the house early Friday when water cascaded from the third floor down to the basement.
Buckendahl said the charity is putting up families now in a motel.
"You can help by checking out our ronaldhousechicago.org/2019floodlanding page. Gifts of money, time, resources are all important."
The Ronald McDonald House opened brand new in 2007. Buckendahl acknowledges it's a "relatively new property, 11 years old but, again as it happens in your homes, anything can happen when you have a freeze of this magnitude that happens in the city and so we’re all facing moments where pipes break and, you know, water is not our friend."
She does not yet know that total cost of the damages. She says not all of the losses will be covered by insurance.