Mounds of salt spill out of collapsed wall at Chicago's Morton Salt factory

Peter Muller was one of a handful of people working at Chicago’s Wrigley Engineering and Technology Center Tuesday afternoon when a loud boom sent vibrations through the floor beneath them.

In the industrial part of Chicago’s Goose Island, where Muller’s office is located, loud noises are pretty common. It wasn’t until a crowd started to gather near the office’s west-facing windows that Muller and his colleagues realized the noise had come from the Morton Salt factory, directly across the river.

“I’ve been working here since September and it’s always been part of our nice office view watching the enormous barges of salt float down the river to get unloaded daily into the factory,” Muller told Yahoo News via email. “The sheer volume of salt going through the factory on a daily basis is really amazing.”

The boom Muller heard was the sound of one wall of the factory, a Chicago staple with its iconic logo of a girl holding an umbrella visible from the highway, collapsing and sending salt pouring out of the building onto cars at a neighboring Acura dealer.

“It’s really a shocking sight to see; the massive mountains of salt are exposed now and the wall around the collapse is buckling,” Muller said. “Seeing the cars buried beneath the huge flow of salt gives it scale and it’s honestly hard to stop staring at.”

In fact, several near the factory took to social media with photos of what looked like a targeted blizzard, followed by local news stations, capturing aerial images of the spill.

The Chicago Fire Department confirmed that no people were hurt in the spill. In a statement, Morton Salt Inc.’s Director of Communications Denise Lauer acknowledged the collapse and said the company is "working with local authorities to review and respond to the situation.”