Two injured, hospitalized after lightning strikes in Oakley

OAKLEY, Calif. (KGO) -- A lightning storm did some real damage in Oakley where a house took a direct hit and two people were taken to the hospital after being injured on Thursday.

"When it blew, it shook us all over the place," Jim Douglass said.

Douglass was inside his sister's home just after 9 a.m. when there was a loud boom and then things started falling inside and outside. "Things were flying, a fan came off the ceiling, blew all the ends of the electrical outside, blew the foundation apart, the flashing across the front porch," Douglass said.

Douglass' 67-year-old sister Donna Keener was standing on her trailer just up from the home and was knocked to the ground suffering a leg injury.

"We're not sure if that was static energy or she was just scared by the thunder and the lightning and the rumble," East Contra Costa Fire Department spokesperson Jeff Burris said.

"I thought it was like a bomb or something, so I was just about to get under my desk or something," student Kaily Speth said.

The lightning storm also shook things up at nearby O'Hara Park Middle School, according to some students who were in their first period class. "I see this big flash of light like outside the classroom and then I see a bunch of kids running outside of my classroom," Speth said.

"It was maybe a spike in the electrical or a big huge clap of thunder that set off the fire alarms in the main building and caused some of our phones to go out," Oakley Unified School District spokesperson Anne Allen said.

The students were briefly evacuated because of the fire alarms, but then the teachers and staff thought better of it, given there was lightning in the area. "My teacher actually just lined us up next to the building because she knew we shouldn't be out on the grass," student Vanessa Royers said.

Those who live on O'Hara Court will have to get by on generators for a while until PG&E can get the power back on to the neighborhood.

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