North Cook News

Ed Kerrigan, Director of Building and Grounds at Skokie School District 73 1/2, recently discussed the damages a district school building experienced from a small explosion in a nearby "little library" this past July.

According to the live-streamed board of education meeting on July 12, a group of unidentified kids set off the explosion around 11 p.m. on July 4 with the force of the event blowing debris as far as 50 feet. Some windows in the Middleton Elementary school building blew out due to its proximity to the little library.

“You can see people,” Kerrigan said about building security footage. “You can't really see faces, really. But you can see, I mean, you can see the explosion, how powerful it was and how it happened.”

The grounds crew was able to clean up all the glass and debris that had blown into the classroom and board it up by the next morning, as stated at the meeting. Nothing else in the building was damaged, but since the glass was a special Thermoglass it caused about $770 worth of damage. A glass company was brought in to repair the damaged windows.

Kerrigan said the police had told him several other little libraries across Skokie had been exploded that night. A school board member said the incident wasn't immediately publicized out of respect for the Highland shooting that occurred that same day. However, a police report was filed immediately with detectives who were looking into the vandalism.