Lightning Strikes!

[gusg]

We had a thunderstorm go through the other day and the very large oak tree out in front of my neighbor's house was struck. The tree is about 300 feet from my house. The tree was struck up near the top and traveled down several limbs, all around the tree and put two holes near the bottom of the trunk where it entered the ground. It blew the bark right off the tree and it now has a bunch of 6" wide lines running down the tree that are brown and white.

My wife said it shook the whole house and felt like a bomb went off. Someone 3 miles away said they saw the strike and could actually feel it.

It blew out several electrical things in my neighbor's house (garage door opener, phone, satellite receiver). Our DSL modem seemed to be our only casualty for awhile. It wasn't working then all of a sudden it was.

The questions I have are:

1. Will the tree necessarily die?

2. Since my gas line runs about 125 feet from the tree (my neigbor's line runs 10 feet from the tree) should I have the gas inspected?

3. What has been TBNers experience with lightning strikes? Can they be dangerous if you are just standing in the area where the electricity is dissipated?

 

[MarkV]

Gus, you never say never but in my experience the tree is going to die. I have seen lighting blow the roots right out of the ground on some trees at our place. Also, you can be in danger just being in the area of a strike. My father-in-law got caught in a thunderstorm while on the golf course and 8 of them took shelter in a gazebo. Lighting hit a near by tree and the electricity went underground getting the gazebo group from below. Two of the fellows ended up in the hospital and my father-in-law had burn marks on the bottom of his feet in line with the spikes on his shoes. I am sure the golf shoes did not help them at all.

MarkV

 

[RobS]

I would definitely have the gas line inspected. We had a neighbor whose house was hit by lightning and several months later another neighbor noticed the smell of natural gas. Gas company came out and immediately replaced a section of line that was perforated from the strike. It wasn't leaking badly but over time it had saturated the soil with gas. Better safe than sorry /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[cstocks]

<font color=blue>Will the tree necessarily die?</font color=blue>


There is a huge white oak tree at my uncle's place which is probably about 200 years old. It was struck by lightning a few years ago, leaving a wide, bare streak down one side of the tree from top to bottom. About a third of the tree died. About a month ago the tree was struck again. Now there are two wide streaks running down the north side of the tree from the top branches, down the trunk all the way to the ground. While the first strike did not kill it I fear that the second one might. At this point the tree still looks healthy and is growing another bumper crop of acorns for the deer to feed on this fall.

I hope your tree survives. It take several lifetimes to replace a mature hardwood tree such as an oak.

 

[BKColeman]

<font color=blue>1. Will the tree necessarily die?</font color=blue>

At our last house we had two trees that had been hit. The first seemed to be doing fine. The second died from about half way up. It had several large limbs that were close to the house so we called in a tree surgeon. He told us both trees should go.

Our insurance company paid us for the tree removal (because of the proximity to the house) and paid us for the value of the trees. Since the trees were pretty large, they paid enough we could have 3 more trees removed while he was there and a bunch of stumps grinded.

--Brad

 

[bsauter]

6 years ago lightning struck a large tree along the tree line onthe south end of our pasture. It lew off bark down one side, travelled 900 feet up our farm fencing, hit our electric fence wires, travelled into the barn and blew the tranformer apart while melting the ground wire. Scorched the wood wall on the barn but that was it. We were lucky the barn didn't catch fire.

The tree is still alive and looking very well this year. For a few years it didn't look too good.

A coworker had lightning hit a tree by his house and it killed the tree and blew EVERYTHING out in his house. Anything that was plugged in was toasted. The lightning travelled from the tree roots to his gutter downspout and hit his electric line going into the house. Took months for them to get back to normal.

 

[RichZ]

A few weeks ago we had a huge oak tree in front of our house hit by lightning. It blew out a side of the tree, and the whole tree burst into flames. We had to call the fire department, and it took them about an hour to put out the fire. Now the tree is leaning, and unfortunately, because of it's proximity to our house, we'll have to have it taken down. But the tree survived and is doing well. If it wasn't leaning so badly, I'd leave it, because it's over 200 years old, but unfortunately it could fall on our house, so we'll have to take it down.

 

[BKColeman]

My parents had a transformer hit a few years ago. It went down the line to the house, followed the guttering across the front of the house, down the downspout and hit the paved driveway. It put a huge crack in the driveway. It hit so hard pieces of the asphalt flew up onto the car hoods. It was something else. Nothing in the house was bothered at all though.

 

[Golfgar4]

Rich,

I remember seeing a landscaping show on the T & V that showed how an older tree that was tipped over in a violent thunderstorm was "righted" and the tree survived just fine. I recall that it did involve staking the tree for a year or two until it re-established itself, but it worked.

Maybe you could check with a tree "doc" before dropping a beautiful, old tree like that! Might be worth a phone call!/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[skent]

Three years ago a large hickory tree (24" at base) in our meadow was hit. I noticed the grass in a 4' circle around the tree was dead. Looked like someone sprayed roundup on it. You could see the line down the side where the bolt traveled. The tree never came back.

Seven years ago we were living in a rented house while our new house was being built. A storm rolled in and the pole out front was hit. Every breaker in the panel was tripped. Well pump - fried. Oil burner - fried. Electric Range - Fried. Electronic control on the electric dryer - fried (even though it was turned off). Many various clocks and bulbs - fried. My kids had a BATTERY operated toy that was in the toybox, When you squeeze the front paw, it would play music, right after the strike, the thing was stuck ON. Not even close to a power line, We had to dig it out of the toybox and remove the battery to make it stop.

powerful and unpredictable stuff!