A massive bolt of lightning came too close for the comfort of some Crest Estates residents Saturday night, topping one huge tree, scorching six others, hurling baseball-bat-sized wood fragments in a wide circle and knocking a woman off her chair, as the 2008-09 rainy season made its noisy debut.

The powerful strike sheared some 30 feet off the top of a huge white fir tree in the 900 block of Crest Estates Drive, toppling the tree’s crown and dashing it to pieces on the ground, while leaving gouges and burn marks on the bark of six nearby trees.

“It’s like somebody strapped 10 sticks of dynamite to that tree,” said Bob Oaks, in whose back yard the lightning struck around 8:20 p.m. Pieces of wood from the bolt’s impact landed at least 75 yards in all directions, including on the deck and roof of Oaks’ home, well uphill from the impact zone.

Oaks and his wife Julie were not home at the time, he said, but upon their return later in the evening they noticed pictures had fallen from their walls. “We thought there might have been an earthquake,” he said. “When we woke up Sunday morning we saw the devastation.”

Oaks, who has lived on the mountain for 45 years and in Crest Estates 10 years, said when he and his wife bought their home they saw marks on trees in their back yard which looked as though they had been struck previously by lightning and had healed themselves over time.

“That theory that lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place is not true,” he said. Oaks said a total of seven trees in his yard were hit by the bolt, including the one that was topped, another that had nearly half its trunk blasted away and others that had deep gouges from high on their trunks all the way to the ground.

ATTENTION GETTER

Neighbors David and Patti Caine, who live about 200 yards away, were at home Saturday night, and the lightning strike certainly got their attention.

“When it struck it just blew Patti right off her chair,” Caine said. “The flash and explosion were so loud, it was like a bomb outside our kitchen window.”

Caine said his wife was not injured by her fall, adding it was caused by her reaction to the “fear and shock” caused by the strike’s bright visibility through both the home’s kitchen window and skylight.

“It was definitely something that made you realize the power of God,” said Caine. “My reaction was just simply awe.”

Caine said after the strike he went outside to check for damage but the rain was so heavy he was forced to remain under the house’s eaves, and could see nothing. Had a similar lightning strike occurred when it was not raining, he said, a fire could easily have been triggered.

Firefighters arrived on the street within five minutes, shining their spotlight around and checking for damage, he said. “I was pretty impressed they would respond so quickly.”

While Patti Caine was being knocked from her chair, another Crest Estates neighbor was having a different kind of physical experience brought on by the lightling bolt.

Judy Zeleniuk, who lives a short distance from the Caines, said she was sitting on her sofa, watching television with her boyfriend, when the bolt apparently struck a power line near her home and caused her scalp to tingle and her hair to rise.

“It was just the strangest sensation,” she said. “It lasted about 10 minutes.” The shock also blew out the cable linking her TV to her DVD player, she said.

Zeleniuk had no explanation for how the lightning may have resulted in what she alone experienced. “My boyfriend was sitting right next to me, and nothing happened to him,” she said.

“It was the loudest clap I’ve heard in my life. It shook the house. I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve never heard anything like that,” she said.

MINIMAL RAIN

Though the rain, which was intense and lasted in Crest Estates an estimated two hours, was heavy enough to prevent a fire, the total precipitation it dropped was minimal. Consulting engineer Ralph Wagner, who maintains detailed rainfall records dating back more than a century, said the first measurable rainfall of the 2008-09 rainy season was not statistically impressive.

“It wasn’t very much,” Wagner said. “It was only .31 of an inch on my gauge.” Wagner, who lives on the lake’s north side, said the south side of the lake typically gets about 10 percent more rainfall.

Contacted on Tuesday following Monday night’s rain storm, Wagner said his rain gauge reflected only an additional .05 inch. “It was essentially nothing,” he said. “In fact, the lake level went down .02 feet, because water supply was taking more than the storm added.

“It takes a lot of rain to do very much,” Wagner said. “And rainfall can be so unequally distributed throughout the mountains.” He said he expects “maybe a couple more mild storms” next week. “But it’s going to take December” to get the rainy season back on track, he added.

Nature was even less generous to Running Springs on Saturday, with the rainfall gauge at the Running Springs Water District registering only .2 inch for the storm. Monday night’s storm added nothing to the gauge’s reading, a district spokesperson said, adding, “It was only the moisture from the trees that fell.”

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