Freaky Lightning Sizzles Through Tree Roots, Explodes In Home

A lightning bolt in a storm that left parts of northern Michigan in the dark early Tuesday morning struck a tree, traveled 50 yards through the roots and jumped to the electrical system of Mike Stickler’s nearby home, where it exploded in the basement, authorities in Mancelona said. The fire district’s chief, Ed Sayre, said he’s never seen lightning behave that way in 34 years as a firefighter.

Sayre called it an “act of God,” and Stickler and his family call it a lousy housewarming gift. The Sticklers moved to the house from Bay City a little more than a week ago. (For more local news, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Detroit Patch, click here to find your local Michigan Patch. Also, like us on Facebook, and if you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

About 1 a.m., Stickler heard the explosion from the lightning bolt, and “the whole house” shook violently enough that artwork and other items were thrown from the upstairs walls. He told WPBN/WGTU that he put out the fire, then called 911.

He had been upstairs for about an hour after watching television in the basement area. The explosion sent pieces of the home’s foundation flying across the room like shrapnel, tossed furniture around and dismantled ceiling tiles.

“He would have been hurt really bad” if he had been downstairs, Sayre told WPBN/WGTU.

Stickler credits fate. He usually falls asleep while watching television, he said.

On Reddit, the conversation turned to the chaotic behavior of lightning.

“Retired undertaker here,” one person posted. “Lightning goes where it wants. I’ve seen it travel down roof flashing, hit a guy's belt buckle, fuse his gold chain around his neck, then melt his cotton pants, socks and shoes as it coursed its way into the ground. I have also seen it hit a tree, go through the roots to an iron pipe system in a cemetery and run the whole length of it until it blew up a pump.”

The undertaker couldn’t resist gallows humor. “No dead were reanimated during this event,” he wrote.

Undertakers in Michigan have more experience with lightning fatalities than some of their counterparts across the country. Michigan ranked 18th for lightning deaths from 2007-2016, when six people died, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. During the same period, 302 people died nationwide from lightning strikes

But the odds of a person being struck by lightning are about one in 12,000 over a lifetime, though scientists say the warming of the planet through climate change could increase the odds to about one in 8,000 by 2100.

Currently, there are about 25 million lightning strikes a year, according to a study published in 2014 in the Journal of Science. For every degree increase in the average global air temperature, the number of annual lightning strikes will increase by 12 percent, according to the study.

Photo by John Fowler via Flickr Commons