Last Saturday the neighborhood had their summer festival and Tetsu was basically in charge of it and had been preparing for it for days. Did I ever mention that Tetsu became the head of the homeowners association for our neighborhood? Remember, the one I didn't want him to get involved with? He bowed to pressure and is doing his best to fill the shoes of his predecessors before him... with all its headaches and the problems involved! ANYWAY...
Unfortunately the weather forecast for the festival day was for heavy rains and the festival was being held on the grounds of the community center a block down from where we live. The community center borders the remains of the forest which had backed up against our house. Neighborhood men had been busy putting up tents for two days and there were booths planned to hold grilled sausages and pickles and fried chicken and water balloons etc. etc. Although I don't much participate in the neighborhood doings, because Tetsu had spent so much time in committee meetings and organizing, I felt that I should make an appearance and before the rain began I headed over to the community center grounds... I made my rounds saying hello to people and buying different snacks from the booths.
Just as I had sat down to eat a baked potato, there was an enormous clap of thunder and everyone screamed and hid their heads... and then we watched a tree another block away from us go crashing to the ground! Yes! Lightning had struck the tree! All the children were scooted into the community center and all the adults made for cover under the tents... and I headed home in a booming lightning and thunder storm. I could hear John barking frantically half way home. He does not like the thunder than any of the rest of us. But after an hour the storm had moved on and the neighborhood continued with their festival. I didn't return.
Thunder storms were predicted here but we just got the rain. I guess the thunder headed in your direction. That could have been even more scary next to your home. Maybe a bit of space between your house and the trees is not so bad. I hope they will plant more young trees rather than apartment seeds like they do in our area.
ReplyDeleteWow, that is scary. We weren't home at the time but our house was hit by lightning last year and put a hole in the roof. What a mess!
ReplyDeleteGlad that the tree was not near your house. Maybe the tree cutting was somewhat of a blessing!
Wow!!!
ReplyDeleteAs soon as I saw the title of your post, I braced myself... Twenty-five or so years ago, it was a July afternoon and I was home alone when a storm hit. Suddenly KA-BOOM. I thought "Boy, that was close." Well I didn't realize how close until my one cat started acting agitated. He led me to the kitchen - I thought he wanted to eat - but instead of feeding him, I got an overwhelming feeling to check out the back door. When I did, there was a huge hole in my house eaves and FIRE rolling around inside...
ReplyDeleteThank goodness for cat sense and female intuition. I was able to get myself and my cats out of the house OK. Fire department came. Neighbors came. The news people came. We made the front page of the paper the next day. The entire roof, attic, and some of the top floor of the house were destroyed. It took nearly a year to rebuild, refurnish, and move back in. Worst experience of my life.
To make matters worse, lightning hit somewhere in the yard a few months after we moved back in, but this time the only damage was a few outlets that had tripped from the surge. We then had lightning rods installed, but the day the guys came to do that, there was another afternoon storm approaching... They didn't even get the rods completely set up before there was a discharge from a cloud, and the man holding the cable that connects the rods screamed and jumped back. He felt the hit in the cable! Even after the rods were on the roof, I heard and saw big arcs and snaps when the rods and the cable did their job. My neighbors saw our fence get hit. I saw lightning come down and hit the ground between 2 neighbors' houses, too.
Needless to say, I'm a total nervous wreck in storms now, hyper-vigilant, checking the attic if I hear a loud boom. I won't schedule an appointment or leave the house if I know storms are due. We are one of 4 houses in the neighborhood that I know of that have been hit by lightning. A geologist told me that we sit on granite and that can attract discharges.
So you were lucky it was only a tree that exploded and that nobody was hit when they took shelter in the tents. Lightning can and does strike twice in the same place! If only I could hit the lottery numbers the way lightning seems to want to hit me!!!
There's a handy website I use called lightningmaps.org. It works for anywhere in the world. It gives you real-time information about where cloud-to-ground lightning strikes are happening, and you can zoom in to almost street level to see your neighborhood. I use it whenever I hear the first rumble. It helps me know how close the strikes are getting.
Glad you're OK, the community is OK, your house is OK, and the only loss was another tree. Trees in your are sure are taking a beating lately!
Yikes!! I am so grateful that everyone escaped without any injury-- what a freakish turn of nature. There's so little that we have control over, especially the weather!
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