It's not the way Tim Sullivan from Cambridge, Illinois was expecting to start his morning.
"It almost looks like a tornado went through instead of an ice storm," Sullivan said.
He woke up without power and thought that'd be the only issue the storm would cause, but then he heard something snap.
"You heard a little bit and then it was like something just got crushed. It almost sounded like a car wreck," Sullivan said.
He walked outside and found a tree split in three pieces. One chunk fell on top of the house, damaging window awnings and the back porch.
"This was phase number two, that fell on the garage and took out the shed a little bit, and phase three was this over here," Sullivan said.
The third piece nearly hit a car in the driveway. It all happened in a matter of 10 minutes.
The house is a part of Cambridge history. It was originally a barn built in 1935 using wood from the Chicago World's Fair. Sullivan says the way the home was built is part of why there isn't more damage.
"That house would be caved in right now, but there`s I-beam construction that`s in it," Sullivan said.
He knows the storm isn't over yet, and more branches could still come down. Looking at the tree split in three, he considers himself lucky that nobody was hurt.
"It`s Mother Nature. The good thing is that we can replace that, but we can`t replace us. I`m just glad nobody was underneath it," Sullivan said.
Sullivan says that he won't go into the damaged garage until the branch is removed, just to be safe. He won't know the full extent of the damage until insurance adjusters are able to come out later in the week.