Lightning Strike Damages Home Save Email Print
Reporter: Zac Schultz
Email Address: zschultz@nbc15.com

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Westfield: A lightning strike damaged a home early Friday morning in Westfield, in Marquette County.

"We found pieces down here, down there," Robert Rivera and his wife are still surveying the damage to their Westfield home.

Robert says a thunderstorm woke him up around 3:30 in the morning. "I went to lay back down and right at that moment, just bam. The whole room turned bright white. My wife went flying off the bed. Stuff started flying all over the place."

The lightning strike hit their antenna and traveled down the tower. "It was real loud, like an explosion. It blew a big hole a couple feet down. The rocks acted like a hand grenade and started tearing up the house."

The rocks tore up the siding, the soffit, and even the deck chairs. "They put holes in all the patio furniture so they were like little missiles."

Robert's bedroom is in the same corner of the house as the lightning strike, and his son's bedroom is directly above. "He said it turned red in his room. He said it turned bright white and then it turned red."

Robert says the heat from the lightning melted the gears in the electrical box.

But the lightning traveled inside too, surging through the electrical wires. There was enough heat to fuse a copper pipe to a heating duct. "It actually fused together."

Upstairs the force of the blast bowed out a wall in the bathroom. "It blew off the tile here, cracked the tile here."

Robert's family was scared but ok. "They were all screaming. Everyone was screaming through the whole house."

Robert and his family are staying at a hotel while they determine how many of the electrical wires need to be replaced.

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Posted by: Anonymous on Apr 25, 2008 at 06:24 PM
I bet for the people who have the weather radios, they are commin in pretty handy right about now!