They span more than four acres across one city block in this central North Carolina community, about a 40-mile drive west of Fayetteville. For each hourlong shift, at least one volunteer had to stroll the entire church campus and its six buildings.
But he made sure to add an obvious caveat: “I don’t think we’d want to do it forever.”Ī fire watch works exactly like you might imagine. “Some people said they’re going to kind of miss it, the form of exercise, the form of fellowship,” Hamilton said. A party for fire watch volunteers is planned for later this month, with matching T-shirts in the works. Fire marshals certified that the newly installed replacement fire protection system was operational on May 4. Now, the church and school are celebrating the end of the fire watch. “When this hit, I will tell you, it brought the church and school community together a little more.” Instead, repairs dragged on, and the human fire watch lasted nearly four months. “We thought that might be a couple weeks, maybe three weeks,” Jill Connett, head of school at Episcopal Day School, said. “You never realize how thankful you are for what you take for granted until you lose it,” Hamilton told Episcopal News Service. They maintained 24-hour-a-day protection of the facilities from fire, a human alternative to the automated alarm system, while the old system was replaced. 4, leaders at Emmanuel and the school on church grounds quickly mobilized a human fire watch, a rotation of more than 50 volunteers. The storm damage wasn’t as remarkable as what it required of parishioners: When the lightning knocked out the church’s fire alarm system on Jan. A lightning strike – that actuarial “act of God,” as junior warden Mark Hamilton puts it – brought together the congregation of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Southern Pines, North Carolina, in a most unexpected way this year. Photo: Emmanuel Episcopal Church, via Facebook The service and other activities in the church were possible because volunteers kept a fire watch for four months, as required by the local fire marshal, until a fire alarm system could be replaced. They declined to comment, but indicated they are staying with relatives until the damage can be repaired.Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Southern Pines, North Carolina, celebrates Easter Sunday on April 9. Benoit was not home when the lightning struck, but Gatzke and two young children were inside. The house at 320 Reardon Road is occupied by Ronald Benoit and Rita Gatzke. "We looked on the roof, and there were clumps of sod and chunks of concrete all over it. "As bad as the damage was inside, the outside damage was even more amazing," Rivers said. The lightning dug a trench through the ground that Verraneault estimated was about 21/2 feet wide by about 35 feet long, ricocheted off metal poles in a garden and finally grounded itself in an outdoor well house. It then followed an outside underground electric line, slamming through a concrete patio or walkway and a concrete retaining wall that was several inches thick. Rivers said the lightning traveled through the house, damaging some walls and knocking items on to the floor before exiting the opposite side of the house. Andy Verraneault took a crew from his department into the house and quickly determined there was no fire, although there was a lot of smoke in the basement. "It's amazing nobody was injured," he said. I fully expected to turn around and see the house knocked right off its foundation. Some of the firefighters tried to cover their ears to muffle the sound. "When it hit, it sounded like a very loud explosion the noise was incredible. "It was like a brilliant white-blue flash of light," Rivers said. Rivers said the lightning struck a utility pole near the home at 320 Reardon Road, traveled along the utility wires into the house and blew the electrical meter in the basement off the wall.
For comparison's sake, the odds of picking the winning numbers in Powerball is 1 in 120,526,770. The odds of a person being struck by lightning over the course of an 80-year lifetime is 1 in 3,000 the odds escalate to 1 in 900,000 for a person being struck twice, according to Storm Data, a newsletter of the National Weather Service. "A truck from Community (North Grosvenordale) had just pulled up a few seconds before we did and their guys were getting ready to enter the house when the second lightning strike came." "We had just pulled up and I was putting my air pack on when a second lightning bolt hit," Rivers said Wednesday. when residents reported their house had been struck by lightning. Rivers, along with members of his department and two other Thompson fire companies, responded to a call on Reardon Road shortly after 6 p.m. Mike Rivers has been trained to have a healthy respect for the dangers of a lightning bolt.Īfter his experience Tuesday night, he has an even greater realization of the power and danger of lightning.
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