At a friend’s house last night.
A lightning strike on a 70 foot oak tree sent 20 foot long, 12 to 14 inch diameter limbs rocketing 20 feet across their neighbor’s property. Luckily no injuries to people or structures, but two cars are under there somewhere.
Almost all the bark on the other side of the trunk blew off in the other direction.
It’s unbelievable that people can survive a lightning strike.
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Yikes!
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It was chilling to see up close.
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That damage is from the steam explosion cause by the power of the strike flashing the sap to steam almost immediately. Scary and powerful.
Glad you are OK after the near hit.
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I imagine. Sobering.
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Fortunately no one was harmed.
Recently two separate storms resulted in local lightning his, one cleanly bifurcated a massive oak, estimated to be more than 150 years old, the second sent an eighty foot white pine airborne like a rocket landing 1,000 feet away.
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Reminds me of what happened at my house about 5 years ago - we had too much rain and then some big winds, it knocked a big hickory over, straight into a big poplar that then landed in the crook of a black oak.
Luckily the black oak held its ground… though it was then leaning toward out house. We had to get professionals in post haste to carefully remove the poplar but we had to take down the oak as well.
Three trees in one night - and yet we were very lucky.
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