Brandon Twp – When lightning struck Wilford and Shelia Rymar’s Perry Lake home the couple considered themselves lucky.
The Wilfords arrived home last Sunday night to find the remnants of a massive double chimney scattered over the deck, stairs and lawn. A section of the chimney had crashed through the garage roof. The homes air conditioners are ‘acting goofy? while the television set and computer are fried.
‘We are darn lucky there wasn’t a fire,? said Wilford Rymar. ‘It was a surprise, but living out in the country you never know what to expect.?
Considered one of the most unpredictable forces of nature moving at speeds up to 60,000 miles per second, lightning can pack a heated wallop of more than 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Like Rymar, Brandon Township firefighters were also surprised that the home was not set ablaze.
‘Typically lightning strikes to a home cause some kind of a fire,? said Chief Bob McArthur, of the Brandon Fire Department.
McArthur added that the department responds to an average of two lightning strikes a year and if a building is hit it usually results in a fire.
Steve Freitag, meteorologist for the National Weather Service at White Lake Township says there are an average of 20 million cloud-to-ground strikes yearly throughout the United States, causing a higher number of deaths and injuries than tornados.
Freitag supports McArthur saying typically building strikes result in a fire, depending on how well the structure is grounded. He added that the greater Detroit area is vulnerable to an average of 35 thunderstorms a year.
While she considers herself both lucky and unlucky, 18-year Brandon Township resident Tina Troha has experienced five lightning strikes in the past six years at her Spruce Lane home.
‘Every time we have a storm it makes me totally nervous,? Troha said.
While the first few strikes on their home affected the garage door opener, a VCR, and the television, the strikes did not cause any fires.
Two years ago, however, a third thunderous battering set fire to the garage.
The power of the blast blew six holes in the gas lines leading into the home, shorted out the entire electrical circuitry and destroyed several walls inside the detached house.
‘I was standing six feet away and was not hurt, but of course we lost all of our electrical appliances too,? said Troha, who explained that thanks to a fast response by the fire department a small fire in the crawl space was extinguished in time to save the home from complete ruin.
‘The whole thing was quite traumatic.?
A shocking exception to the old adage that lightening never strikes twice in the same place, Troha says she continues to remain uneasy during the commotion of a storm. She added that voltage from last Sunday’s storm struck close enough to her home that it blew all the circuits.
‘We are checking into getting lightning rods,? Troha laughed.
Also a victim of the volts, Chief McArthur’s family experienced two near misses when a bolt of lightning struck a century old tree in the front of their home in April 2003.
Four months later a second thunderous assault on the tree blew out every window of the McArthur home, as well as the home of Assistant Chief Dave Borst across the street.
‘It was actually the force of the splintered wood that caused the damage,? said McArthur.
McArthur says in each lightning strike case the homeowners were uninjuried, warning that during a storm resident should take cover, not talk on the phone, and not use electrical appliances.