A massive thunderhead pours rain and lightning over suburban Denver homes, Colorado. Trees are silhouetted and homes are lit by incandescent light. The thunderhead is lit by huge lightning bolts reaching from the top of the clouds to the ground.
Lightning fatalities are rare but precautions should be taken
Three killed in lightning strike in Washington D.C. last week
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Scott LaMar
A massive thunderhead pours rain and lightning over suburban Denver homes, Colorado. Trees are silhouetted and homes are lit by incandescent light. The thunderhead is lit by huge lightning bolts reaching from the top of the clouds to the ground.
Airdate: August 9, 2022
Three people were killed and a fourth critically injured when lightning struck a tree they were standing under last week in Washington D.C. Fatalities from lightning strikes don’t happen often – sometimes up to two dozen people a year are killed and multiple fatalities are even more rare.
Chris Vagasky, a meteorologist and Lightning Data and Safety Specialist with the National Lightning Safety Council said on Tuesday’s Smart Talk, “It’s really uncommon that people are actually struck or injured by lightning. We say the odds are a little bit longer than one in 1 million, and that’s looking at all the numbers across the United States. But if you put yourself into dangerous situations where you’re staying outside during a thunderstorm, those numbers do increase.”
The three people killed in Washington last week were standing under a tree, which Vagasky says is not a place to be during a thunderstorm, “Lightning will tend to strike the tallest object. And if you’re in an open area, that tallest object is often a tree. So any time that you see clouds building up, you hear thunder. You want to get to a lightning safe place. And a lightning safe place is a fully enclosed metal vehicle or a substantial building that is a building that has electrical and plumbing in the walls.”
What happens when a tree is struck by lightning? “So when somebody is under a tree, if they’re leaning against the tree or they’re right next to the tree, they can be impacted by the lightning in one of three ways. The first one is ground current, so the electricity goes through the tree, into the ground, and then spreads out. And you can be electrocuted that way. The second way is what we call a side flash. So the lightning hits the tree and the electricity jumps from the tree into the person. And then third, if somebody is leaning against the tree trunk and the tree is struck by lightning, the electricity has a direct path then from the tree into the person.”
Do lightning rods work? Vagasky indicated lightning rods that have a wire that reaches to the ground do guard against damage from lightning, ” They do a very good job of keeping the electricity away from where you want things to be safe. So at Cape Canaveral, at the Kennedy Space Center, the launch facilities are protected by expansive lightning protection. Now the Washington Monument has light protection on it. Buildings and houses have lightning protection built into them so that you can keep that electricity away from the property that you’re trying to protect.”
Scientists say there could be more lightning strikes as the climate changes.
