Here’s what the SkyDeck at Chicago’s Willis Tower is meant to look like: a cage made of super-strong glass, hanging on the 103rd floor, providing visitors with a stunning vista of the Windy City.
And here’s how it looked on Monday, when a clear coating cracked under the feet of spooked visitors:
As in the common parlance: yikes.
CBS Chicago reports visitor Jesus Pintado was present when a protective layer on the SkyDeck floor shattered, sending folks into a justified panic.
Pintado said a woman and two children looked pale when they saw the floor – which is engineered to carry 4.5 tonnes – fragment beneath their feet.
“I’m scared of heights in general so when I saw that happen, I was like nope, not going on,” Karly Pintado added.
The good news is the SkyDeck has reopened. Willis Tower engineers said the cracking was only present in the thin anti-scratch layer, not in the load-bearing glass below. A similar incident occurred in 2014 with no harm done.
Willis Tower is so confident in the tourist exhibit, which draws an estimated 1.5 million visitors per year, that they’ve already advertised SkyDeck yoga taking place next week.
Our next #Yoga in the Sky event takes place in just FIVE days! Enjoy a preview of @lululemonCHI’s #yoga and #meditation classes on Wednesday, June 19 from 6:30 to
8:30 a.m. for #NationalWellnessMonth. Purchase tickets here: https://t.co/oiYL8Tyhz9 #SkydeckChicago pic.twitter.com/K2pkgrBPjL— Skydeck Chicago (@SkydeckChicago) June 12, 2019
Will that confidence convince the acrophobics among us to give the exhibit a try? Probably not, but hey: more Instagram shots for everyone else, we guess.
