What It's Like to Be Struck by Lightning

[csziggy]

5. I've come close a couple of times

Once when walking back from the barn on top of our ridge while a thunderstorm moved in. As I crossed the open field in the middle, my hair started standing up - which is a feat since it was nearly down to my butt in those days. I ran the rest of the way home and got in the door just as lightning struck a tree on the top of our ridge.

Another time I was on the deck next to the house. Again I felt the static electricity working on my hair, stepped inside and pulled the door shut just as I heard a "CRACK!" and lightning struck a pine about fifty feet downhill from the house. It blew a chunk of wood out of the side of the tree about two inches thick, eight inches wide and ten, twelve feet long.

It killed the mature loblolly pine, but we left the stob for decades. The hawks, owls and woodpeckers loved that tree. The week we started building our new house a storm came through and in the middle of the night I heard a "BOOM!" When I shone my big spotlight down the hill, the pine had finally fallen. I ran out into the storm since there had been a family of pileated woodpeckers nesting in it for a number of years. I found the cavity which had broken open, but there were no chicks or eggs in it that year.

Those two times are as close as I ever want to get to being struck by lightning!