My wild night.

[Vyris]

Well, last night was a REAL doozy!

For those that arean't familiar with my area, here in Montana it's a very beautifull place, a large mountain valley with a nice river flowing through it. Most of the time the weather here is pretty mild, but usually in the month of August we get some pretty extreme thunderstorms, and last night set a record.

I've been told that the national weather service satalites last night counted 727 lightning strikes in a 40 miles radius from my little city of Missoula, that a bunch, but theres only one strike in particular that I was interested in last night, call it fate, or peotic justice, or blind chance, whatever, I can see a little of all those in what I'll write next.

My neighbor is nice guy, he's a retired executive of BF Goodrich (the tire company) and despite his obvious wealth and obscenely expensive tastes he tries not to be too condescending, which he fails at most of the time, but you can tell he geniunely is trying to fit in here where he has his 'summer home'. Yes, there is a point to this background, keep reading.

Well, as I have said before in this post, Ausgust in western Montana is thunder storm season. Every night about 7PM a few clouds will gather, attracting a few more, pretty soon you have a big party of grumbling clouds on the horizon and before long they move in and start booming and blowing. Last night it was a bit warmer than normal, the storms formed a bit earlier than normal and blew in with enough force to overturn 6 semi's on the interstate. I lost power about 10 minutes after the start of the blowing, unplugged everything in the house and went outside to watch the show.

Well, about 5 minutes after that I was littleraly rocked back on my heels by a lightning strike in my back yard! WOW! It struck a power pole along the back border between my neighbor and myself, about 30 feet from where I was standing, it spintered the pole about 4 feet off the ground and catching the whole thing instantly on fire. Now, here is a moment when you can recall everything that happens in second by second hi-def detail. I was facing away from the strike, the blast hit me and nearly knocked me on my butt. I turned to see the top half of the power pole flying up into the air with lightning coming from the stump, arching up into the air, into the main part of the pole and then up into the sky. The pole was on fire as it came falling down, in my neighbors yard, where it fell across his 3 day old Hummer (still had the sticker in the window), and his house.

So, everyone comes flying out of both houses, he's freaking out, my ears are ringing so bad I can STILL barely hear. He's torn between his Hummer and his house, his wife is running back in to get things of value from thier house (which at this point looked like it might soon catch fire. My wife is collecting kids and getting them back inside, it was chaos.

Anyway, I run to my garage and get my jeep, and as I am backing out I nearly get run over by a fire engine (remember I can't HEAR a thing at this point) Those guys were on patrol when they lightning first hit and started orbiting the area looking for fires, someone was definately looking out for my neighbor. They pull up and start undooing hoses, and as I pulled my jeep up and pointed at the front on of the fireman grabbed the cable of the winch on the front and pulled out cable, then he and my neighbor wrapped it around the pole and I backed it off the house.

All told this whole drama lasted about 20 minutes, my neighbors Hummer caught fire and burned to a crisp, but they saved his house from and major fire damage. The firefighter that was wrapping the cable from my jeep suffered 3rd degree burns on both his arms and chest trying to get the cable looped around. That guy is my hero now, and I am going to buy him a tall frosty one as soon as his bandages come off and he can hold it. My neighbor has promised to pay any of his hospital bills that the county won't cover, and vowed to send him and his wife on a month long vacation to a timeshare he has in Rio. I would be a bit envious, but the guy definately deserves that and more.

Then theres the linemen... my god, these guys were out at 1 AM pounding a new pole in the ground next to where the old one was, when I got up this morning they were stringing new line, by 9 am I had power. (granted, it still comes and goes). My internet is definately a LOT spotty today, so I'd better go ahead and post this now while I still have it.

Hopefully I'll be online tonight, take care everyone.

Vyris

[Doc-Holiday]

Well thank God your all right!

[jjkolb]

Glad to know that no one got seriously hurt--although I wouldn't want those burns.  His heroics deserve at LEAST two frosty ones!

[Dorganath]

*jaw drops*
   
  Um....Wow! 

[Filatus]

*blinks*

That's... quite a story, glad everything turned out alright.

[Andrios]

Yikes!!
Nothing like a nice quiet night at home...
I am glad the damage was contained and you and yours are fine.  
We'll have a toast in that fire fighter's honor over here in our neck of the woods as well.

[Leanthar]

Wow. Glad you and the family are alright at least. That sounds pretty scary actually.

[Doc-Holiday]

okay... check my first comment... Thank God no one died

[KageKeeper]

Wow. I am thankful everyone came out of it ok!

Very exciting and very scary.

[Doc-Holiday]

*clears throat* Lighting bolt Lightning bolt Lightning bolt Lightning bolt

[Vincent]

Doc-Holiday - 8/25/2005  3:37 PM

*clears throat* Lighting bolt Lightning bolt Lightning bolt Lightning bolt

*smiling* ... oh, that's terrible.

[Variable]

Wow! quite a night...
  Glad you're alright

[Sahala]

I've been within 30 feet of a lightening blast once, and it scared the living *explicative* out of me so bad I nearly peed myself.  Luckily, it didn't blow anything up.

[IDii]

Whoa. Nasty stuff...

[Destropterammer]

When i hear stories like that im glad im over here in weather safe Denmark, glad no one was hurt bad. Only ever experienced one major storm in my life. Was'nt pretty.

[NEXUS7]

When I was a Kid lightning hit our house wile i was on the Phone, One moment on phone next on ass stunned.
All that did was fry the wiring and the copper lightning conducter

but with fire as well that could have been real bad.
glad your ok