{"id":12015,"date":"2019-07-18T07:30:45","date_gmt":"2019-07-18T10:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaker.ca\/?p=12015"},"modified":"2019-07-18T07:30:45","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T10:30:45","slug":"fall-river-family-recounts-terrifying-lightning-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/?p=12015","title":{"rendered":"Fall River Family recounts &#8220;terrifying&#8221; lightning strike"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p style=\"text-align:center\"><strong><em> Strike leaves thousands in damages, but family counts themselves lucky<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>FALL RIVER: <\/strong>Carter MacDonald knows he won\u2019t be taking thunder and lightning lightly anytime soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>MacDonald\n and his family\u2019s Celebration Drive home in Fall River suffered damage \nJune 28 as a result of a lightning strike that was strong enough to \nshake their house and send rocks flying into the air. The weather had \nbeen overcast, but quickly became dark and changed as the storm moved \nin. It also started a fire in their electrical box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Firefighters \nfrom nearby Station 45 Fall River, along with mutual aid from stations \nin Waverley, Sackville, and Wellington, were quickly dispatched to the \nscene. The responding units were stood down by Station 45 after they \nchecked the scene and determined other units were not required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Lightning strike travels into home\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5Ja4B5hfvDg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption>Explaining where the Lightning hit and how it traveled. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>With dad, Ryan, hindered from hip replacement surgery earlier in the week, and  his mom with sister, Hailey, at Ash Lee Jefferson to get her report  card, Carter had to help search the home to ensure there was no further  signs of fire or damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe saw a huge orange flash and a very \nloud bang,\u201d recalled Carter. \u201cThe fire alarm went off immediately. You \ncould smell smoke so we checked the house to see where or if there was \nfire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt was quite terrifying as the lightning is normally white, so the orange flash was very scary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Carter\n said there was no fire detected downstairs, and he didn\u2019t see anything \nwrong. He told his father what he saw, so Ryan went down with cane in \nhand to check it out for himself. Carter went outside to see where it \nhad hit the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/029-683x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12018\"\/><figcaption>Hailey and Carter MacDonald display some of the plug switches that were fried after a lightning strike hit in their backyard and travelled into the house causing thousands of dollars in damages.  The family did have insurance. (Healey photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Outside, Carter walks down to Ground Zero where the lightning strike \nhit, leaving a gaping hole in the wooded area, surrounded by a lot of \nwood that could have caused more trouble for the MacDonalds and their \nneighbours had it not rained in the days prior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The strike \ntravelled up the hill, sending rocks up into the air, before it hit the \ntop of the septic system. It was strong enough it created a bit of an \nexplosion as the cover of the septic system went flying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhere it\n hit the tree and then hit the ground, I think it\u2019s pretty freaky that \nit hit the chamber of the septic and blew the cover out into the woods,\u201d\n said Ryan. \u201cHilchie\u2019s said that the strike likely ignited the methane \nin the pump and blew it all up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Carter and Hailey both showed off\n three plugs that have visible fire damage on them from being hit by the\n lightning strike. They lost laptops, iPads, and blew all the breakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ryan\n said the strike cost the family \u201ca few thousand dollars\u201d in damages, \nbut they all realize it could have been much worse. The house could have\n been hit directly, it could have caught fire, they could have not been \nhome, and as scary as it sounds, Carter could have still been having a \nshower as he had just a minute before the lightning strike hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Lightning advice from Carter - take it seriously\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wcFBOfApRV8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption>Take lightning seriously, says Carter.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Carter said he used to not think of thunder and lightning storms as \nanything too serious. After his family\u2019s brush with the result of a \nlightning strike, his attitude towards them has changed 360 degrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\n thought it was just something cool,\u201d Carter said of how they felt \nbefore their close call. \u201cWe really didn\u2019t take it seriously. It wasn\u2019t a\n very scary thing until now. It was so scary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They all classify themselves as lucky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIf that hit the deck it would have done a lot more damage,\u201d said Carter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ryan agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cYou\n could see how powerful that strike was just hitting the ground,\u201d he \nsaid. \u201cImagine what that would have done if it had hit a house?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>\u201cWe got extremely lucky it hit where it did and didn\u2019t hit the house. The house would have been on fire for sure.\u201d<\/p><cite><strong><em>&#8211; Ryan MacDonald<\/em><\/strong> <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Strike leaves thousands in damages, but family counts themselves lucky FALL RIVER: Carter MacDonald knows he won\u2019t be taking thunder and lightning lightly anytime soon. MacDonald and his family\u2019s Celebration Drive home in Fall River suffered damage June 28 as a result of a lightning strike that was strong enough to shake their house and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12016,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2,32,619,620,621,237],"class_list":["post-12015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-fall-river","tag-firefighters","tag-lightning-strike","tag-lucky","tag-mother-nature","tag-storm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}