The thunderstorm that pushed through Daviess County Thursday afternoon caused numerous power outages and damaged at least one home in Curdsville.
About 35 firefighters were dispatched about 4 p.m. to 9000 Curdsville-Delaware Road after an elderly couple reported that their home had been hit by lightning.
“It struck a house and went all the way down in the basement,” said Greg Schadler, fire chief of St. Joseph Fire Department. “We had to fight the fire from the bottom up.”
Schadler said crews drove through the pouring rain and flooded roads to reach the home.
“When I got there, there wasn’t a whole lot of smoke in there, but I could tell where it was burning underneath the floor,” he said. “It struck in the chimney area and went down through it. It burnt the floor joist out of it.”
Schadler said there was extensive damage to the floor of the house, but the structure is in good shape, adding no one was injured.
He said it took crews about 30 minutes to get everything under control before firefighters could reach the hot spots. He said the residents will probably have to stay somewhere else temporarily.
“Right after a lightning strikes, it takes a little bit to get it really rolling and we were fortunate enough that everybody was close enough,” Schadler said. “We could get in there and get the fire knocked down pretty quick.”
He said Airport-Sorgho Fire Department and Stanley Fire Department were some of the fire departments that responded including two Daviess County Sheriff’s Deputy.
“We got a good volunteer base out here,” Schadler said. “It was a group effort out here from all of the departments on our end of the county.”
