A direct lightning strike tore through a home on Burnett Avenue in Bay Shore Friday morning, blowing out windows, damaging the roof and ultimately sparking a fire in the attic. Three people were inside at the time, and all of them made it out safely.
The strike hit as a band of thunderstorms rolled across Long Island's South Shore, striking multiple occupied homes, including the one in Bay Shore, according to CBS News. Fire officials told the outlet that lightning struck an air-conditioning unit outside the house, and that ignition sparked the fire that followed. The home is described as a legally subdivided two-family house, and all three occupants escaped without injury.
Accounts of exactly when the strike hit differ. PIX11 reports the homeowner first called 911 just before 7:30 a.m. to report the strike, while ABC7 New York places the incident at the two-family rental home at 8 Burnett Ave. around 9:45 a.m. Firefighters initially found only external damage with no fire or smoke inside the home, the station's report notes.
A Second Call Revealed Fire Hidden in the Attic
The situation changed when the homeowner called 911 again around 9:30 a.m., according to the same account. That second call led crews to discover a fire burning in the attic, hidden from the initial assessment that had turned up no flames or smoke. The delayed discovery underscores how lightning damage can smolder out of sight before breaking into the open.
Bay Shore Fire Chief John Ippolito Jr. described the morning's electrical activity as unusually fierce. “A lot of lightning from 7 to 9. It was pretty intense,” he told CBS News, capturing the two-hour window during which the South Shore bore the brunt of the storm.
Lightning Left a Trail Across the South Shore
The Bay Shore strike wasn't an isolated event. In Center Moriches, lightning struck a metal chimney cap, and the homeowner there was left assessing the damage, per CBS News.
The storm's reach extended into Brooklyn as well, where reports diverged on the scope of the outage it caused. CBS News said a lightning strike was being eyed as a possible cause of a Friday power outage in the borough, while ABC7 reported that a lightning strike knocked out power for nearly 5,000 customers in Flatbush and that Con Edison had since restored service.
A Past South Fork Storm Offers a Costly Comparison
Long Island has seen lightning cause serious structural damage before. A summer thunderstorm on the South Fork once sparked a fire in a Sag Harbor condominium and caused several minor fires after lightning struck at least four houses and a utility pole between East Hampton and Amagansett, according to The East Hampton Star. In that Sag Harbor case, a bolt struck an outdoor telephone jack on a deck and followed the phone line inside the building.
The damage in that earlier incident proved extensive: a fire marshal estimated that 15 to 20 floor-supporting trusses in the condominium had burned badly enough to cause structural instability, the Star reported. It's a reminder of how a single strike can do far more damage than is visible at first glance — much like the attic fire that firefighters in Bay Shore only found after a second call for help.
