We were supposed to have storms this morning before sunrise. I was already up when I thought I heard thunder. Because I love that sort of thing, I stepped out to see. We had very high winds but it wasn’t even damp yet. Then I turned and saw this tree lying against the building next door to ours.
The folks living on that lower floor noted that the heavy limb stuck in the wall there came through into their apartment. The manager lives across the street and came out to look at it. While I was ready to help out, as were a couple of other guys, she asked us to wait for the maintenance crew.
This poor air conditioner is crushed. I had noticed that A/C unit was running and not working, and had tried to turn it off but I couldn’t reach it in the darkness. So I waited until it was light enough and took some pictures in case no one else thought of it. I note with some sadness all these sycamore trees on our side of the street have been dying one by one. Two were removed before I moved here, leaving craters next to the sidewalk. Now we’ll have another one.
A few years ago, lightning struck a large tree right next to our house. Got completely split down the middle and fried the circuit on one side of our house, not to mention scared everyone witless. Makes you wonder how curious pre-tech ancient cultures were with that stuff…lightning and thunder were the most sense-intense things they could come across.
From the ancient cultures I know about, it was contextual. Lightening accompanying symbolic events were acts of revelation. Otherwise, the meaning of storms and lightening vary widely.