'Holy s---!': Watch the moment lightning strikes a Maine church
As strong thunderstorms rolled through the Northeast on Wednesday night, a Maine teenager was on his front porch hoping to capture video of lightning striking a church steeple across the street. And he did just that.
Carl Bouley, a 16-year-old from Grand Isle, Maine, recorded the dramatic footage of the bolt striking St. Gerard-Mount Carmel.
“In 2007 on my birthday, it was hit by lightning, too,” Bouley told the Bangor Daily News. “When I saw the conditions with the atmosphere were the same yesterday, I figured, why not try to record it.”
In the video, Bouley can be heard talking to his father, Bruce, about darkening skies when lightning struck.
“As soon as I pointed the camera to the ground and back up, it happened,” Bouley said.
After the storms cleared, Bouley and his father, both members of the Grand Isle Volunteer Fire Department, went to check on the church.
“From what we can tell, there was no damage,” Bouley said. “We checked it with the thermal camera.”
No was one injured.
Between 2003 and 2012, 349 people were struck and killed by lightning in the United States, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including four in Maine. Florida, with 52 lightning deaths, ranks No. 1 in terms of the number of lightning deaths by state.
Earlier this week, an Idaho man, Ryan Cross, was struck by lightning while camping. He survived.
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