Lightening nearly struck the same guy twice

Lightning does strike twice. In fact, the Empire State Building gets 20 to 25 strikes each year.

Or take Jerry Orchanian’s two close encounters.

“I was looking out the (second-floor) window of a six-story apartment building in New York City,” recalls the meteorologist. “I felt this tingling sensation. A couple of seconds later it was like a bomb had gone off. There was a bright white flash. The windows rattled.”

He went to the sixth floor. The lady whose apartment had been struck was screaming.

On his second close encounter, he had just returned from grocery shopping in West Virginia and was sitting in his carport when lights started flashing around him.

“It was like mortar shells going off in battle,” he says. “I had to wait 20 to 25 minutes to get out of my car. I never got hit, thank God.”

Orchanian, warning coordinator for the National Weather Service, has a thing or two to say about what’s true and what’s false when it comes to lightning.

Homes on hills are particularly susceptible, he says, adding that lightning can travel from person to person. “If lightning strikes one person, it’s going to jump to the next person and the next person,” Orchanian says. Stay at least 15 feet away from other people, says the National Lightning Safety Institute.

Rather than dissipating on impact, Lightning can travel on land for up to a quarter of a mile, Orchanian says.

Lightning can discharge as far as 10 miles away from any rainfall. To figure out how far away the storm is, count the number of seconds between the flash and the next clap of thunder, and divide by five to get the distance in miles.