{"id":596,"date":"2022-01-10T18:05:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-11T02:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.misschatter.com\/vancamp\/?p=596"},"modified":"2026-01-09T06:32:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T14:32:41","slug":"lightning-strike-january-10-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.misschatter.com\/vancamp\/lightning-strike-january-10-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightning Strike : January 10, 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Still set up in the front yard and with the holiday break over, I had returned to working in the tent. A thunderstorm rolled through early in the afternoon. Suddenly a bolt of lightning blinded me as a thunderclap boomed simultaneously. It was so violent, I actually screamed. That had to have hit close. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once the cell passed, I cautiously walked the yard looking for any signs of a strike. A live oak tree in the back yard on the opposite side of the house\/driveway from me appeared to have fresh scars. I also discovered my internet router was fried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure enough, at 6am the next morning, creaking, groaning and splintering sounds filled the air, followed by a loud crash. A large limb gave way on the tree and crashed to the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I called a tree service and they determined the tree had been killed by the strike and couldn’t be saved (live oaks are protected), so I hired them to remove it (oh, and while you’re at it, please trim the overgrown mangroves at the river’s edge!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One bonus to having that tree removed is it opened up access between the carport and house to the back yard (aka “the river lot”). Eventually we moved back there. I just had one more puzzle to figure out – how to dump tanks from far away.<\/p>\n\n\n

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