Damage by Lightning.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLIII, Issue 2282, 29 January 1912, Page 3

Damage by Lightning.

A Hash of lightning was responsible for a severe shock- to a Lin wood (Cbristchurch) family during a recent thunderstorm. Mrs H. Manhart, the occupier of a house in Bordesley street was seated at the dinner table with her son and daughter, when there was an appalling crash, which temporarily stunned them. For some moments they were unable to raov?, such was the violence of the shock, and upon looking around they found the room filled with thick smoke, and their first thought was that the house was on fire. It was found that a paper ornament, which had been hanging across tbe ceiling, was burnt to ashes, and upon inspection other small items of damage were discovered. The track of the lightning began near the bottom of the girden, where a strip was torn off a wooden rail and a section of netting wire was fused. The discharge then ran along the clothesline, which was attached to the house, fusing the nail which fastened it, and splintering a hole through the weatherboards to obtain entrance to the kitchen. It ran across the roof, leaving a trail of burnt charcoal, and turned aside into the scullery, where it slightly burned the wood part of the sink and llattened out a piece of bras? chain attached to the tap as (lat as a penny. A large iron dish lying in the sink had a deep dent made in it and a Email hole. The total damage was not very great since, beyond a certain amount of disfigurement to the roof by fire, nothing of value was touched, but the family had an extraordinary escape. Mr Manhart was sitting directly u ider the path of th ; light ning, aud was oa the point of rising to go to his work. Had he done so he would inevitably have been killed, since the roof is low and he is a tall man.