Lightning shatters windows

Sally Fearns lost her computer, telephone and hot water heater as well as some windows. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

When lightning strikes in suburbia, it can leave quite a mark. Mangere Bridge residents discovered this after lightning hit a conifer tree, shattering windows and burning out appliances and phones.

When the bolt hit the tree outside Sally Fearns' home in Mangere Bridge it shattered 12 of her windows, "fried" her computer, telephone and hot water heater and cut off power to most of the neighbourhood.

Her neighbour also lost four windows, and other neighbours' phones and Sky decoders blew.

Ms Fearns said the strike had somehow dragged the nails in her walls down through the panelling and some light fittings fell out of the ceiling.

She was half-awake because of the noise of the storm when the tree was hit early on Friday morning.

"There was an almighty boom and at the same time the glass just sort of shattered and dropped out of the windows.

"It must be what a bomb going off sounds like. Apparently people said they heard the boom in Howick."

She said the family closed all the internal doors and sat in the hallway until the weather calmed down.

"My son usually sleeps with his curtains open, but luckily for him he'd closed them that night because he's right next to the tree and three of his windows blew in.

"When I looked after it was light, there were all these bits of tree inside the house."

Her hearing was still affected and her doctor had sent her to have hearing tests.

MetService severe weather forecaster Ian Miller said the lightning struck at 5.53am.

"It was a fairly strong one, about 108 kiloamps, which is a fair bit of current, so I'm not surprised it did some damage."

The "shockwave" from the sound of the lightning was probably responsible for the shattering windows and moving the wall panels.

"The air heats and expands very rapidly, so it's like a shockwave hits the house," he said.