A freak storm sent massive lightning strikes into downtown Sechelt last Friday, resulting in electrical currents running through buildings and people's bodies.
People working in the education building of the Sechelt Indian Band complex got the scare of their lives when a lightning strike shot through the vent above the desk of education co-ordinator Lenora Joe.
Joe, who wasn't affected aside from ringing in her ears, was in the office when the strike happened.
Mary Joseph, an employee at the centre, happened to look out the window just as the strike happened and saw her brother, Keith Julius, racing by at top speed.
Simultaneously a large bang went off and Joseph said the workers could feel the electricity go right through the vent above Joe's desk.
"It put me in shock," Joseph said.
The lightning struck at 1:50 p.m. and affected the main Band office as well. It set off the fire alarms through-out the building. At the same time staff saw sparks coming off the roof.
Julius, a Band councillor, said he could see the weather changes coming across the ocean. He watched moving clouds of rain, followed by hail, followed by sun. He could see the lightning coming down on the building. While he was crossing from the education building to the administration building, he heard a huge boom and saw a flash. In fear, he squatted down then ran to the building's breezeway.
"I never knew I could run so fast," he laughed after the excitement died down. "As I was standing there I was still shaking. I've never experienced anything so close like that in my whole life. You get a true taste of its power and its force when it's so close to you. It's Mother Nature at her finest."
Coun. Tom Paul thought the lightning had hit a corner of the administration building he was in because of the boom and flash.
"It frightened me," Paul recalled.
He said his wife had seen the purple and red lightning bolts zigzagging down onto the ground.
Sue Perry, another employee, was on the phone when the strike happened. The phone went dead and her ears started ringing immediately.
Joyce Joe was sitting at the administration reception desk when the lights went out and she heard an explosion.
"I thought we were being bombed," Joe recalled. "I've never been so scared in my life."
The Sechelt Volunteer Fire Department attended with three fire trucks, a command vehicle and 15 firefighters after the alarms went off.
"Obviously everyone was scared and upset," said Fire Chief Bill Higgs.
He said the lightning travelled into the Band's buildings through outside phone antennas or edges of the building sticking out. Firefighters searched the buildings with a thermal imaging camera before letting people back in.
A mother and daughter arrived at the Band hall buildings from the cemetery to seek help from the firefighters after the 19-year-old daughter was reportedly struck through the umbrella she was holding. The mother Bonnie Forrester described in a phone interview Wednesday how the lightning hit a transformer, exploded really loudly and sparked, then the top came right off the transformer and the lightning hit her daughter. She saw major bright lights around her daughter Jennifer and her umbrella. Jennifer then screamed and let go of the umbrella, Bonnie recalled, and her hand was immediately red and ice-cold to the touch, as if all the blood had disappeared from it. The electrical currents ran up her arm to her shoulder, Bonnie explained.
Jennifer was taken to St. Mary's Hospital by ambulance from the Band building. The doctors told the women they thought the lightning bolt may have travelled underground, but to Bonnie, "it looked like the lightning bolt hit my daughter's umbrella." She did not get electrical burns although her hand was red. On Wednesday, Bonnie said Jennifer's hand is still a bit sore but she is slowly getting better.
The two women had travelled from Surrey for the day to bury Bonnie's father's ashes in the Band's cemetery. Her father was an Egmont resident and was a member of the Sliammon First Nation.
"He always said he was going to cause a major storm when we buried him," Bonnie recalled. She explained he had jokingly meant the storm would be a way to let them know he was happy and had found his way. At the cemetery, there was a huge lightning storm then the sun came out after they buried him.
Higgs said when the women arrived at the Band buildings, the daughter was conscious but very upset.
"She told me she'd felt she'd got an electric shock down her umbrella," Higgs said.
In Higgs' experience, lightning bolts striking a population centre is unusual. More often, stumps or trees are struck in a forest.
"Typically they don't cluster like this in one spot," Higgs said.
Higgs was pleased with the response of the employees in the buildings.
"Everyone had evacuated the building and a head count had been done by the time we got here," he said.
He said from what he had seen at the fire station, it looked like five or six strikes had hit the downtown core. In front of the fire hall, a woman fell over in the crosswalk when it struck, according to Higgs, and he heard reports of others falling to the ground from its force.
"Your senses were just overcome by this and it just knocked her over," Higgs said. "It was just a really intense moment for the visual stimuli. It was a pretty odd event and when it's over, you think wow did that just happen."
The fire department also responded to reports of the St. Mary's Hospital annex buildings being struck. No one was injured, however the computers were fried.
Cheryl Bate witnessed the lightning from her office window in the annex.
"The sound was just so violently loud," Bate recalled shortly afterwards. "The crack really wasn't just like a limb was breaking, it was like the whole tree was hit. It was like a baseball bat cracking right by my ear. It was wild." As well, she saw an intense spark of light.
"I'm speechless with how lightning bolts work," she said.
Over in Port Mellon, Howe Sound Pulp and Paper lost power to its newsprint machine because of the lightning, according to Al Strang, manager, environment and external relations. Though the power was out for approximately half an hour, it took some time to get the machine running again. Strang figures they lost about six hours of production, as well as profits in the tens of thousands of dollars. He said the machine losing power was pretty unusual for the mill.
