Lightning strikes in Grand Mound early Thursday morning. South Thurston and Lewis counties saw periodic bursts of lightning Thursday morning and again in the early afternoon.
Last Thursday’s lightning storm, which resulted in hundreds of lightning strikes spread out over half a dozen Southwest Washington counties, didn’t spark any fires, but caused some damage to Lewis County Public Utility District equipment, Engineering Manager Jeff Shupe said Tuesday.
“We sustained a fair amount of damage,” he said. “(Lightning storms) are fairly rare around here.”
As many as 1,100 customers experienced a power loss at some point, with the largest concentration being in Napavine, he said. There, 600 customers lost power because an underground surge arrester — designed to channel a lightning strike into the ground — was overloaded by a lightning strike and failed.
A number of transformers were also struck by lightning and failed, he said.
