Lightning

Today was the kind of day that we 'Phoenicians' get excited about. The kind of day where our excitement is 'newsbreaking'. The kind of day when swimming playdates have to be canceled. Yes, people. It rained in Phoenix. And all of the above statements are true.

Usually our monsoons strike in the evening. But today, the storm rolled through in the morning and kind of lingered all day. I liked the clouds and drizzle (but not the humid 95 degree temp.). I am thankful for a day out of the triple digits, though. This morning, thankfully I got home from the grocery before the sky opened up. Around 9:30 this morning, minutes after the kids came inside from running around in the rain in our cul-de-sac, lightning struck. I swear it felt like it hit our house. But nothing was burning (Tripp says the house would be on fire if it'd been struck). But it had to have hit close because the windows rattled. The ground shook. It scared me enough to cause me to let out an uncontrolled shriek! Tripp poked his head outside our front and said, "you wanna know where the lightning struck?" It was our neighbor's, across the cul-de-sac from us, front lawn!! From our window, we could see a huge mud mound and grass divets all over her driveway! I couldn't wait for the storm to pass so I could go check it out! It was unbelievable:

From my uneducated perspective, it looks to me like the lightning struck right between these two palm trees and caused this 1 foot deep trench across the lawn to the brick border.

This is normally a nicely manicured lantana bush, but now, blown to smithereens! If you look at the brick border just behind the palm tree trunk, you can see how the border looked all the way around. Look at all the tiny pieces of brick that border became.

See that big gray rock? It used to be over by the palm trees. The force of the lightning strike, flung it about 10'!

Two of her yard lights were blown out of the ground, this one landed in the driveway. Look at all the debris from the blast!

Excuse my excitement, but I've never seen, up close, what a lightning strike can do. I'm amazed! And completely thankful that God spared our kids who had JUST been playing several feet away.