Lightning struck an auto repair shop in Longmont Wednesday, damaging the interior and exterior of the building.
John Lord, the service writer for Season Performance Auto Repair, was near the shop at 1119 Kimbark St. when the lightning struck.
He was dropping off his car down the street after working on it at the shop when he heard a booming clap of thunder.
“We were just down the street at the stop sign when I heard a really loud thunder crack,” Lord said.
When Lord turned the corner at the auto repair shop, he noticed that the street was shut down.
“I saw a bunch of firefighters and around three cops,” said Lord. “I asked them what was going on and they said ‘hey yeah your building got hit by lightning.’”
Lord then gave firefighters the keys to the shop so that they could assess the damage.
“I didn’t notice it at first but when I walked back out with the firemen, I looked up and our sign is just dangling by literally one cord,” said Lord. “There’s char all over the side of the building and a bunch of the bricks were messed up.”
Around 10 minutes after the strike, David Harvey, the CEO of Seasons Performance Auto Repair, received a call from Lord informing him about the lightning strike.
“We have two trees in front of our building and there was lighting marks down the tree,” said Harvey. “It looks the lighting came from the tree to the cable and it put a hole in the brick where the cable was.”
After Lord was finished speaking to firefighters that were on scene, local business owners gathered around and discussed how loud the thunder sounded.
“I mean it’s definitely concerning, but it can happen to anyone. It’s just kind of the luck of the draw as to whether or not, you know my apartment could get hit, your house could get hit, or your place of work,” said Lord.
When employees returned to work on Monday, they noticed that some of their service systems were affected by the lightning strike.
“It fried our signage, our water heater, our computers, TV, and the lights weren’t working when we came in.” said Harvey. “We were luckily able to recover some things but there is definitely still some issues with our systems. I just opened back in March and then we get a lightning strike to our building.”
Harvey stated that an electrical inspector is coming to assess the full extent of the damage on Wednesday.
“Moving forward, it’s just figuring out what’s broken and how we can recuperate,” said Lord. “Being such a new business, any sort of financial withdrawal is pretty significant. It is not easy but we will get through it.”
