Santa Rosa tree explodes after lightning strike
Santa Rosa tree explodes after lightning strike
The cleanup continues in a North Bay neighborhood after lightning struck a redwood tree overnight, splintering the top half of the tree into dozens of pieces that went flying. The Santa Rosa tree explosion could have produced a lot of flaming embers, but the intense rain falling at the time prevented that.
SANTA ROSA, Calif. - The cleanup continues in a North Bay neighborhood after lightning struck a redwood tree overnight, splintering the top half of the tree into dozens of pieces that went flying.
The Santa Rosa tree explosion could have produced a lot of flaming embers, but the intense rain falling at the time prevented that.
Tree practically explodes
What we know:
The remains of the once tall redwood may be left standing as a reminder of nature's power.
At 5 a.m. Friday, a huge redwood tree in Santa Rosa's Oakmont Village was struck by a bolt of lightning, exploding the top half of the tree. That scattered debris 200 feet.
Two buildings were damaged: the Monsignor Fahey Parish Center, and an adjacent office building. The church was red tagged; the office yellow tagged pending safety inspections. No one was injured.
What they're saying:
David Morgan lives just across the street. "Shocking, 'boom' and then a crack. The loudest thunder that I've ever heard. Immediately you have a little fear, because those trees are everywhere," he said.
A resident who lives a distance away from ground zero was just as shocked. "The loudest thunder I have heard ever since I moved to the West Coast 45 years ago. It was incredibly loud. I woke up very startled, and the sky was all lit up," said Oakmont resident Kaurel King.
The owner of the office facility actually feels a bit lucky. "One of the tenants called and said that the rear end of our building was crushed by a tree. I thought the whole tree had toppled over but it's not quite as bad as the church property," said owner Ira Lowenthal.
Extremely tall trees, filled with water, are natural lightning rods. "I was talking to Kent Porter, the photographer for the Press-Democrat and he said this is the fourth one in a couple of months," said Lowelthal.
Dig deeper:
Looking at the debris, the tree was very, very healthy before it was blasted, literally into smithereens. Here's how that mechanism actually works.
When lightning, sometime at 50,000 degrees, hits a tree, that current, five times hotter than the sun's surface, instantly super heats the liquid into steam. The steam expands to 1,600 times the liquid's volume.
This superfast conversion from liquid to gas causes extreme internal pressure that blows the tree apart.
"To have something this large and get destroyed is pretty freaky, I've got to say. It's kind of scary to be honest with you, because I've got a couple pretty good-sized trees next to my house," said Oakmont Resident Dave Cox. "They say about 60 feet tall. It's now, what? Thirty? Twenty?" asked Lowenthal.