Lightening Strike ~ YIKES!

ELECTRIFYING EXCITMENT!! I'm telling ya it's something with this house ... or is it me?

On Sunday July 10th 2011 at 11:35am lightening struck on electric box and severed a gas line starting a fire in our front yard. A sound I never want to hear again!! Scared the HELL out of me it was so LOUD...a sound I will NEVER forget!!

Here is a video I took once the electric box started to really roll with fire and spark.

Unknown at that time of the video....my "favorite tree" was already dead as the lightening went underground and blew up the roots in saw dust. So the burnt leaves n branches were nothing compared to the power of the bolt.

And it reeked havoc underground to all the wiring and piping to our home.

Dan and Avrianna were up North for the weekend to bait Dan's bear stand and to pick up Avrianna's cousin Whitney who is going to stay with us for the month. What chaos to come home to right? I'm sure Dan will catch a bunch of crap, for being gone when we have a fire in our front yard, from his fireman buddies ~ LOL

Here are some pictures .......The fireman were wonderful....stopping up at the house to make sure we were ok and seeing if we needed anythingThankfully they walked up to the house and I didn't walk out there.....my not thinking I was bare foot and it was wet out from the rain ..... they firemen said they could feel the electricity under there feet walking up to the house. It would have been all over for me!

Here's the hole it blew around in the ground.
After the electricity and gas were turned off the fire went out.....the firemen still had to cool everything off.The guys assessing the damage......if they only knew what all happened under ground :(
Before they took everything out I was able to get a picture.....they believe this was the point of impact on the back of the electrical box.The water pressure control panel that fried and the pressure tank took a hit too

The cover to the water pressure control panel that blew off the wall about 4 ft.
Part of the electric/gas/cable/phone guys that come to start the repair process. It has only gotten worse from when they were all here. It was so HOT n HUMID on Sunday these guys took a beating!!
All this dug up and they STILL have to go further to get to damaged pipes n wiringTemporary Gas line running above ground through our yardCones everywhere to show were the gas line is and there is just enough space/gap at the end of the driveway so we can get in and out.Black arcing in and out at all our breaker boxes

As of today we have had to replaced or I know that needs to be repaired :

* the water pressure pump and control panel ~ it will be a few days before we find out if it caused trouble down in the well. GREAT!

*they have to dig another trench through the front yard to replace the natural gas line.

*replace the modules in our irrigation system to find out if we need to go further to rewire the WHOLE yard ~ which means tearing up my WHOLE YARD!!

*electricians were here this morning and they found a few switches that were toasted and a transmitter that needed to be replaced.....now we sit in wait to see what else dies in the next few weeks. I was told with this hard of a hit things can just stop working ~ ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!

* the phone/internet/cable line has been replaced

*TOO BE CONTINUED ~ Sigh :(