Lightning strike

Wife just called me, our oldest daughters apartment got hit by lightning early this morning and caught fire. She's ok, grabbed a few things and got out. She's the one that found the fire which was in the attic, she has a door to the attic thru a big walk in closet, kept following the smoke and when she opened the door there it was. Landlord has already told her don't worry everything will be covered. She doesn't have any idea yet about smoke and water damage. Think she's going to stay with her boyfriends parents tonight, they're real close by.

Will update when I know more.

 

Dear Journal......







On a similar note we had a tree get struck the other day, blew the guys brick and stone that he had around it into the road. We walked past it and I thought a car hit it but noticed nothing amiss other than the damage directly to the tree and landscaping. Told the wife it was the huge bang we heard the other day, it hit that tree.


Another time we had a lady get hit in a car, hit the A pillar and blew almost all modules in the car. Left a tiny dime sized area that looked exactly like a spot weld on the pillar. Scared the shit out of her.

 

30,000 amps @ 224,000 mph...what's to fear?

 

Holy crap! Glad she's ok man. One of my friends back in FL had their attached garage catch fire just last week when the batteries of a Ryobi drill went nuclear. Their dogs woke them up!

 

Got a little more info.They had to cut a hole in the roof to put it out so she won't be staying there for a while.They let her back in, the fire got into the closet a little, she lost some books ( girl loved to read, she has alot ) and some clothes. Smoke and water damage as expected.
I guess they had a really intense storm hit, fireman told her they had 3 other fires caused by lightning at the same time.

 

Glad she is OK.
Hope she has renter's insurance to cover her furnishings, personal items & temporary living expenses.

 

Some scary stuff. The retired couple across the street got hit earlier this year. I jumped about 3 ft. off the couch when it hit. Blew the cover off their electrical panel and into the side of their van, causing some pretty decent damage. He told me he was actually on the throne when it happened, so he literally had the shit scared out of him!!

 

I just found out, no she doesn't. Landlord says their policy will cover all her stuff, we'll see I guess. She just sent some pics, worse than I thought. Alot of the ceiling caught fire so it's a mess. Pretty sure she'll just stay with the boyfriends parents, they have room and are only a 1/4 mile from her work and she says " they love me ".
Told her she can come have her old room back but she'll have to fight the dogs for her bed, they've kinda taken it over since she moved out.
But it's 45 minute drive each way for her to work.

 

Have her check everything carefully. Its impressive what a lightning strike can do. We stayed at a house in the Outer Banks this year that got struck while we were there. It took out every TV in the house and blew the can lights out of the ceiling and the cover plates off the wall.

 

Glad to hear she's all good!

We had lightning strike a tree about 10 feet to the side of our house. It didn't do much damage to anything besides a few ports on our TV. It's freaky to be able to look at the tree and follow the path the lightning took all the way down to the ground. The tree is also partially dead now, a few years later.

 

There's the hole it blew in our roof 3 weeks ago,,, shit is viscous.

 

Never heard of a policy (non auto) that will pay for someone else's stuff, especially for an "act of God". As a landlord, unless I cause a fire by negligence that wipes out my tenant, I owe him nothing. That's what renter's insurance is about. Even if it's my negligence that caused the fire, I think they would have to sue me as no insurance company is just going to pony-up out of the goodness of their heart.

Hope it works out well for her.

 

“A close or direct lightning strike will sometimes give you a short warning a few seconds before the event, usually in the form of: A soft or loud buzzing, clicking, hissing or cracking sound. A tingling sensation. Hairs on the arm or head standing on end. “ This topic made me do a search on the Internet because of what happened to me. My story is a little hard to believe. But I felt some of this sensation one year in Saint Cloud Florida ,back in the 90s . I was on top of a 60 ft metal billboard , working on the face with a stepladder. Lightning hit the billboard with me on it , I have no idea how I survived . I’m a 70s kid and was told many crazy things back then in elementary school . One of nutty things that was told to me . If lighting was gonna strike you or near you . Jump and get your body off the ground quickly or get yourself low as possible. They did mention something about a odd sensation just before it strikes you or near you. Anyways all that shit happened. The hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood up and the sound of bacon frying in a pan .YES ! that’s what I heard . I ended up jumping off the step ladder and onto the catwalk right when before it hit . So it might have saved my life that day .

 

I'm surprised renter's insurance isn't required everywhere. For how little it costs, I always used it when I rented. Glad your daughter is OK and hopefully her landlord's policy helps!

 

Yep we rented a townhouse while we looked for a place to buy moving back to PA, rental company required renter’s insurance.

 

I locked my bicycle up outside of a friend's apartment one night and it was stolen. Renters insurance still covered it. I think it was $5/month for my coverage.

 

Sometimes reading the beeb can be frustrating. Not to go all dungeony in this thread but believe it or not there are some people in this world, to include apartment rental complexes, that don't require renter's insurance because there is market in this world for middle & low income families that can barely afford the monthly rent. Necessities, in many cases, don't include renters insurance, something that we may never need to use, why "waste" that money. Rant over - carry on.

 

Well the insurance guy was there yesterday and as I suspected they don't cover her stuff so she's going to have to eat it. Other than the clothes and books she lost not sure what else. Some of the furniture was the landlords, she did have a desk she said is ruined. She found a place that does some kind of cleaning / deionaztion to get rid of the smoke smell. I guess it's a big room, flat rate for as much as you can stuff in it so she's going to do that.
Enough damage that the landlords guessing up to a year before she can move back in so she's starting to look for another place.

Had told her she should have renters insurance but you know kids, they don't listen...

 

Or couldn't afford it. It maybe an expensive lesson for her.

 

Renters insurance lowered my car insurance to the point that it was cheaper to have renters + car than just car.