West Hillhurst home struck by lightning during Tuesday afternoon’s storm

There was heavy rain, thunder and lightning as a storm moved through late Tuesday afternoon.

One of those lightning strikes hit a house in West Hillhurst.

A bolt of lightning went clean through the roof and then the kitchen of a home on 21st Street N.W.

The owner says he and his wife were luckily in other rooms when the strike happened.

The fire department patched up the roof to the best of its ability.

No fire was sparked.

It all happened as a storm passed through that side of town, and the talk of the community in the aftermath was the volume and strength of a thunderclap just moments after the home was hit.

“All of a sudden, the picture window lit up like the sun and all of a sudden, crash, and you can smell insulation burning—smell something burning,” said Donald Johnson, whose home was hit.

“(I) went into the kitchen and there was shrapnel—plaster shrapnel—all over the kitchen.”

He says his focus now will be on cleaning up all the drywall and ceiling pieces in his kitchen, and then insurance will be called.