A lightning strike Sunday night caused damage at three homes near the Fifth and Madison Street intersection in Kinmundy. Kinmundy-Alma Fire Chief Kevin Day says lightning appears to have hit the corner of the Chris Patton home at 504 South Madison near the satellite dish and then spread through the ground to the other two homes. Fortunately, there were no fires inside any of the homes. Day says the electrical wiring burned in the Patton home and they lost all of their electronic devices that were plugged in at the time of the strike. The lightning also damaged items plugged into the electrical system at the Kevin Hollowell home at 203 Fifth Street. While the lightning caused no damage inside the Jake Brimberry home at 109 Fifth Street, it did cause a natural gas line outside near the meter to rupture. Fire was coming out of the ruptured line when firemen arrived. However, Day says it was far enough from the home not to cause any concerns. They left the fire burn until Atmos Gas could arrive to shut off the line. Day feared more problems from having the gas spewing into the air. The fire calls came in at 10:48 Sunday night. Some fire equipment remained on the scene until 12:20 Monday morning when the gas line was turned off. Day thinks the lightning may have been able to travel between the homes because of the saturated ground conditions. Assistant Chief Richard Day says they had plenty of help to be able to survey potential problems from the lightning strike inside all three homes. The damage was the only reported in Marion County related to the line of heavy thunderstorms that crossed the area Sunday night. The storms blew into the county with strong winds. 83-hundredths of an inch of rain was recorded at the Alma Weather Station, 78-hundredths at the Centralia Water Plant, and only one-tenth of an inch at the Salem Water Plant. No storm warnings were issued for Marion County. Severe thunderstorm warnings were posted for Jefferson and Wayne County, but so far there have been no reports of any serious damage. - http://goo.gl/zwfTK
