The lightening alarm next door at the country club went off, the sky turned gray then really ominous, we had some mild rain, wind, the temperature dropped 20 F, it is now calm.
one of the most frightening experience ever was as a teen working at the town pool as a lifeguard and a thunder storm moved in faster than we could clear the pool and take down all the big umbrellas. Didn't take much to abandon the umbrellas. No way would I be climbing a tall metal chair to close a metal umbrella.
Another frightening lightening scare was like 45 years ago at the Pittsburg airport waiting for an arriving airplane when a bad thunderstorm swept over the airport after the airplane had landed but before it reached the gate/jetway. Just seconds before the airplane reached he gate a lightening bolt hit the ground just feet from the terminal building or maybe hit the terminal building itself, sending a light flash through the terminal building. Seconds later later the plane pulled into the gate and when the jetway canopy lowered and contacted the airplane it was like the mother of all electrical discharges that sounded like a canon fire and sent a flash up the jetway into the boarding area, scaring the living sh-- out of everyone within 50 yards. Ran through the jetway fearing the jetway driver may have been fried, so happy to see him frightened to death but alive, with the only apparent damage being a 12 inch diameter, black scorch mark where the jetway made contact with the plane, and all the paint gone. Thankfully, no one on the ground had touched the airplane prior to the jetway canopy touching it.
