News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Lightning blasted bark of this tree from tip to roots.
The sky turned from iron gray to an ashy black as the thunderclouds boiled up on Wednesday evening, May 4.
Thunder muttered in the distance, rolling closer and closer as rain began to spatter the Sisters area.
Just before 5:30 p.m., residents of the Tollgate subdivision west of Sisters heard a high-pitched electric whine, then saw a blinding flash, followed instantly by a ponderous crash of thunder that sounded to many like an explosion.
A lighting strike scored a tree on the northwest corner of the Lariat loop from tip to root and blasted the underground cable running nearby.
Bark flew 30 yards from the tree and there were unconfirmed reports of residents to the south on Lariat suffering damage to electronic appliances.
There were a couple more loud peals of thunder, then the storm cell moved away.
It was a truly isolated thunderstorm. There was little if any activity in Sisters itself.
Bend Broadband cable crews were on the scene the next morning to locate and repair any damage to the system.
Central Electric Cooperative reported no outages in the area.
Subsequent storms during the week, while dropping plenty of rain, did not produce any thunderstorms in the Sisters area.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
Reader Comments(0)