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Lightning strikes redwood tree sending shards of wood into living room

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    SAN JOSE, CA (KPIX) — It was an explosive, close call for some neighbors in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood on Tuesday, when a lightning strike sent a redwood tree flying in all directions.

Shards of wood smashed through a sliding glass door of a home and straight through the couch. Luckily no one was sitting there.

The next door neighbors also got a scare.

“It looked like a giant ball of light. It just completely lit up our backyard. It sounded like a bomb went off. It was insane. And then we opened up the doors, and there were big chunks of redwood tree all over our backyard,” said one woman who saw it happen.

Fortunately, aside from a crushed trash can the neighbor’s house wasn’t damaged.

No one in either house was hurt.

KPIX 5 Chief Meteorologist Paul Heggen said the rainstorm that brought the lightning incident has passed but there is more precipitation brewing offshore. Bay Area residents should expect more locally heavy downpours on Wednesday.

He said risk of more lightning is low, but it only takes one strike to do the kind of damage seen in the Willow Glen neighborhood.

“Fifty-thousand degrees of heat will definitely do that,” Heggen said.

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Article Topic Follows: Regional News

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