we can see the storm was building, it was stronger than what we frequently see around here t. rainfall was really good. winds are whipping and sheets of rain are pelting the enclosure. rita tries to record all the action. i was paning across the back yard. as i was doing that, i could see in the background, the trees were really bending over from the wind and i thought, okay, i m going to pan back over there so i can maybe catch this tree, you know, really bending. watch this tree, it will start getting real windy in just a second. rita doesn t know how spot-on her camera work is about to be. oh, shoot. an explosion of thunder and lightning sends rita scrambling for cover. it s like boom! i jumped in the house. my camera goes flailing around and my mouth shouted out. it was so instantaneous that may
this tree has some ornamental lighting up into the tree t. lightning had skittered down the side of the tree and struck that fixture. it blew the fixture four or five feet away from where it was originally even stalled. it went sailing through the air and landed over in the grass. i had to search around to find it and it just completely crisped all wiring. not wanting to keep this once in alifetime site to themselves, rita decides to share her video online. i just thought it would be a really great way for all of my friends to see just what a coincidence it was that it just happened to blow up, you know, right behind that spot. i thought, oh my gosh, i have to put this on youtube, what are the chances of catching a lightning strike, you know? rita s audience expands quickly beyond just her friends. the video goes viral, garnering more than 3 million hits. despite all the attention she and her husband won t try to
lightning capital of the united states and that chance encounter becomes much more likely. october 5th, 2012, avid storm fans and naples florida residents rita and nick grill are preparing to watch an afternoon soaker. i looked out the windows. it was so dark. he said, let s go check it out. so we came out onto the lanai. it was, it was windy. i thought, this is a neat storm, i got to grab michael remarks let s see if i can film this. real rooting tooting rachael here him very awesome. the skies were angry that day. we were watching this storm build and build and build. rita was filming it, paning her camera back an forth, just really taking the whole thing in. it s just beautiful. the lightning, whohoo-hoo-hoo. oh. i love it!
body just felt like the base of a woofer or something like that. it s not like anything else that i really felt. it s like you see on film, it s one thing, tray to multiply that ten-fold, can you get an idea what it felt leak. it was something we western expecting. almost simultaneously obama of flames bursts up from where the lightning strikes down. in my recollection of things, they were two events. one was a lightning strike. the second was the fireball. they were probably separated by a time measure that i can t even comprehend. it lifted the whole screen up. my next thought was, where s the dog? there are some things in this world that would cause other dogs to skit or go underneath the sofa. marge was on.. she looked at it. she s an apaiding little pooch. rita and nick don t realize