MEADOWBANK - A family in Meadowbank was frightened out of their beds in the wee hours of Sunday morning when a lightning bolt shook their home, blowing a hole in the wall of the master bedroom right above the owners’ heads.
The sound was so loud, Ashley MacLeod and her husband didn’t even notice the blow to the gyprock, less than a foot away from where they slept.
“It was just around 2 a.m., or just shortly after, and suddenly there was this huge clap, it just kind of lifted us right out of bed,” MacLeod recalls.
“My husband said, ‘What was that?’ And I said, ‘I think the house just got hit.’”
They jumped out of bed, and MacLeod’s husband, Shane Arbing, ran outside fearing a tree had fallen on the house in the midst of the powerful llightning storm that rocked the province Saturday night and early Sunday morning.
MacLeod noticed a smell of burning wire.
That’s when she discovered smoke in the basement.
The couple, and their nine and 24-year-old sons, then fled the home, taking shelter in their vehicle as the lightening storm continued to rage.
When firefighters arrived on scene they found no fire.
The family was told it was safe to return to their home, but they were uneasy through the remainder of the night without power after the firefighters who responded to their call rushed to a second home also struck by lightning in nearby Nine Mile Creek.
The next morning, they were able to get a better picture of what happened.
A new hole in the ground with singed ends of a blue underground electrical line that led from a satellite dish in a nearby tree into their home suggests the lightning bolt struck this spot on the ground a few feet from their home.
CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT MARITIME ELECTRIC'S RESPONSE TO THE STORM
An electrician has since visited the house and believes electricity from this strike travelled through the underground wires into the basement of the house.
Their foil covered insulation and other metal beams in the structure allowed the powerful current to then travel through the building, blowing the hole in the bedroom wall and blowing the cover off of an electrical outlet in their downstairs family room.
The current then travelled back out into the yard, blowing the bolted-down cap of their water pump completely off.
It was discovered eight feet away.
There are now charred paths across their lawn showing the destructive path of Mother Nature.
“It was very scary at the time, but we’ve had lots of thunder and lightning storms and nothing has ever hit,” MacLeod said.
North River fire chief Kirby Wakelin described the damage to their property as "shocking."
“I’ve been in this fire department 26 years now, and I couldn’t believe the destruction that it did from the lightning,” he said.
He says he is not aware of any measure a homeowner could take against the dangers of bolt lightning, which he believes is the most dangerous and destructive type of lightening.
“I was shocked by the amount of damage that was caused. You wouldn’t think that lightening would do that,” Wakelin said.
“We face a lot of dangerous situations all the time, and even that to us is a scary one.”
The family remains incredulous the thunderbolt hit the ground next to their home, rather than one of the many tall trees on their property.
Thankfully, their insurance will cover all the damage.
“It was scary but we’ll just hope it’s true that lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice,” MacLeod said.
MEADOWBANK - A family in Meadowbank was frightened out of their beds in the wee hours of Sunday morning when a lightning bolt shook their home, blowing a hole in the wall of the master bedroom right above the owners’ heads.
The sound was so loud, Ashley MacLeod and her husband didn’t even notice the blow to the gyprock, less than a foot away from where they slept.
“It was just around 2 a.m., or just shortly after, and suddenly there was this huge clap, it just kind of lifted us right out of bed,” MacLeod recalls.
“My husband said, ‘What was that?’ And I said, ‘I think the house just got hit.’”
They jumped out of bed, and MacLeod’s husband, Shane Arbing, ran outside fearing a tree had fallen on the house in the midst of the powerful llightning storm that rocked the province Saturday night and early Sunday morning.
MacLeod noticed a smell of burning wire.
That’s when she discovered smoke in the basement.
The couple, and their nine and 24-year-old sons, then fled the home, taking shelter in their vehicle as the lightening storm continued to rage.
When firefighters arrived on scene they found no fire.
The family was told it was safe to return to their home, but they were uneasy through the remainder of the night without power after the firefighters who responded to their call rushed to a second home also struck by lightning in nearby Nine Mile Creek.
The next morning, they were able to get a better picture of what happened.
A new hole in the ground with singed ends of a blue underground electrical line that led from a satellite dish in a nearby tree into their home suggests the lightning bolt struck this spot on the ground a few feet from their home.
CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT MARITIME ELECTRIC'S RESPONSE TO THE STORM
An electrician has since visited the house and believes electricity from this strike travelled through the underground wires into the basement of the house.
Their foil covered insulation and other metal beams in the structure allowed the powerful current to then travel through the building, blowing the hole in the bedroom wall and blowing the cover off of an electrical outlet in their downstairs family room.
The current then travelled back out into the yard, blowing the bolted-down cap of their water pump completely off.
It was discovered eight feet away.
There are now charred paths across their lawn showing the destructive path of Mother Nature.
“It was very scary at the time, but we’ve had lots of thunder and lightning storms and nothing has ever hit,” MacLeod said.
North River fire chief Kirby Wakelin described the damage to their property as "shocking."
“I’ve been in this fire department 26 years now, and I couldn’t believe the destruction that it did from the lightning,” he said.
He says he is not aware of any measure a homeowner could take against the dangers of bolt lightning, which he believes is the most dangerous and destructive type of lightening.
“I was shocked by the amount of damage that was caused. You wouldn’t think that lightening would do that,” Wakelin said.
“We face a lot of dangerous situations all the time, and even that to us is a scary one.”
The family remains incredulous the thunderbolt hit the ground next to their home, rather than one of the many tall trees on their property.
Thankfully, their insurance will cover all the damage.
“It was scary but we’ll just hope it’s true that lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice,” MacLeod said.
Maritime Electric crews had their work cut out for them after Saturday night’s lightening storm.
About 3,100 customers were left in the dark thanks to damage from lightening strikes across the province.
Maritime Electric spokeswoman Kim Griffin says work to restore power to those affected lasted until 1 a.m. Monday morning, due to the volume of areas that were hit.
“When a lightning storm hits, it generally causes individual outages, so it’s not like it was just one part of a line and we could put the power back on,” Griffin said.
“Our crews had to make visits to between 70 and 80 homes across P.E.I. so we had eight crews out.”
