More like lightning struck!

We had just finished watching Dexter on Showtime and were both in the kitchen.  I was putting some fruit into the refrigerator and Lisa was making coffee for the morning.  We’d been hearing the distant rumble of thunder most of the evening and, occasionally, it the sky would open up with a drenching, soaking rain.

All of a sudden, the all I could see was a blinding white light and at the same time, an explosion that rocked the house.  Three cats instantaneously scattered in different directions, and Lisa jumped back away from the window.

For sure lightning had just struck something and it was way too close for comfort.  We looked out the window to make sure our neighbors’ roof wasn’t on fire and then I picked up the phone and called them to make sure they were okay.  They confirmed that there were no flames shooting out of our own roof.  We tried with no success to see what had happened but, with the heavy rain hampering visibility and the windows/screens causing too much glare for the flashlight to pierce beyond them, we figured we’d see whatever it was in the morning.

When I got up this morning I went around the house peering out windows but saw nothing telltale.  Perhaps the lightning hadn’t hit but had come close, between our house and the neighbors.  Later, as we backed out of the driveway, we saw our neighbors across the street standing in their front lawn looking at their tree.  We found where the lightning had hit.  From the ground to about 10-12 feet above the ground, the bark and part of the tree trunk itself were peeled off as if some giant creature had taken a giant vegetable peeler and just taken a stroke at that tree.  The tree is a loss but thankfully nobody was hurt.

There were plenty of people in the immediate area who had to change their underwear last night, though.