By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter
A Gloucestershire woman is lucky to be alive after a lightning bolt struck her home.
Liz Odell, 67, was away in Cambridge when her Nailsworth home was hit by lightning on April 15.
She returned to a home without electricity and several broken devices including her TV, music system and internet router.
Had she been at home in the shower when lightning struck, she believes it could have killed her.
“I think it probably hit my aerial,” she said.
“My neighbour texted me to tell me my house had just been struck by a thunderbolt and my alarm was going off.
“That was strange because I hadn’t actually set the alarm when I’d gone out. The alarm was going off because the power had been disrupted.
“[The lightning strike] took out the aerial junction box. It came down and it burnt out a lamp in the bathroom ceiling.
“And, at the moment, the electricians appear to be totally rewiring my first floor because they couldn’t find where the circuit was broken.
“At the moment, they’ve got all the carpets up and they are drilling holes in the floor to re-wire it.
“I’ve got to have a new fuseboard, it destroyed my television, sound bar, subwoofer. It broke my music system and it took out my router and BT box.
“And my gas boiler is no longer working, so I have no central heating or hot water.
“It was lucky I wasn’t in the house because if I’d been in the shower or touching anything I may well not be here.”
Ms Odell said apart from a burnt out bathroom light there is not much evidence of the lightning strike apart from the fact so many of her electrical appliances no longer work.
“There’s nothing to see,” she said.
“The only evidence I’ve got is the downlight from the bathroom that is all scorched and blackened.
“That’s the only thing I’ve got that you would know there was anything wrong. I got home and nothing was working.
“And there still isn’t 12 days on. It’s being repaired as we speak!”
She said it was all dark the evening she returned home.
“I went upstairs and the ceiling lights weren’t working,” she said.
“I thought it was the fuseboard, the trip switch. My neighbour came round and tried to reset the fuseboard and we concluded it was a job for an electrician.
“It wasn’t until the next day I realised the central heating and hot water wasn’t working.”
Ms Odell, who has been living a the home for almost 16 years, hasn’t experienced anything like it there before.
“As they say lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place,” she said. “Hopefully it’s a once in a lifetime event”.
Her neighbour Steve Robinson, who is the chairman of Gloucestershire County Council and a Labour Party District Councillor for the area, said several homes were affected by the lighning strike.
“It was a really loud bang,” he said. “It was huge, I’ve never heard a bang like it.
“It did our Sky Q box in and also the router.
“It tripped everything else as well. A further neighbour lost his landline and another neighbour across the road
“At least four houses suffered in some way. But nothing like Liz’s.”