Astraphobic Enlightenment . . .

Lightning Strike

(Image from Wikipedia)

Cousin Bill tells me that my Aunt Pauline and Uncle Woodrow suffered a lightning strike to their house about a week ago. Some readers might recall them and their Ozark place from En-Uk's big fish story of last summer. Anyway, here are some of the details about the strike relayed from Aunt Pauline by Cousin Bill:

"We're running our legs off trying to get things back in order after the lightning strike on our house. It got the well, the furnace, all lights inside and out, computer, toaster, fire burned the ends of cabinets" -- said she couldn't think of all it got. They're cooking now at the "little house" [on their property.] The [big] house is smoke filled . . . [and they] "have been washing it and everything inside."

But they were very lucky, according to the experts:

"They told us we were within a few seconds of the house blowing up as fire was burning insulation off the gas line -- before Woody got the gas shut off. Knocked the transformer 75 feet off the yard pole, had glass broken, got the phone, light meter, and more."

That's enough to make one astraphobic! More from Bill:

They were asleep when it hit . . . . Pauline woke up . . . saw the fire in the kitchen area and started screaming . . . was finally able to awaken Woody and together they got the fire out. Said Woody has been going all week trying to get things fixed and another week to go. Adjuster hasn’t yet been out.

That reference to a mysterious 'Adjuster' leaves me hanging . . . sounds almost like some marvelous superhero, but I reckon it indicates someone from the insurance company. While we wait to be enlightened on that, let's listen to Aunt Pauline tell us about trying to awaken Uncle Woodrow to get him up and save their home:

I was screaming, "The house is on fire!"

Woodrow was saying, "Oh Pauline, I didn't hear a thing, lay down and go to sleep, you get so excited over everything."

And she got the last word in, too:

"We are thankful to be alive, guess my loud hollering done the trick."

It sounds like it did, and I'm glad that Aunt Pauline's words managed to convince a skeptical Uncle Woodrow and that the house will still be standing when I visit them this summer.