The other morning I was having breakfast with our engineers Mike and John. We were catching up on things with our radio station when Mike asked, did you hear about the lightning hit at Lamb Radio?  I hadn't so he filled me in.

Tuesday morning, August 18th lightning hit the top of the building at 6300 Old Village Place in Sioux Falls. You probably know it as the business mall area that houses McNally's Irish Pub and other businesses. As you can see in the cover picture the top of the building has a metal rail. You can also see by the clock in the picture that the lightning hit at about 7:32 AM.

Here's where the story gets interesting. The lightning strike started the insulation smoldering in the attic of the building. A fan in the attic took smoke down to the lower level where it was detected by a smoke alarm. The fire department saw the alert and responded. By the time they arrived, sprinklers were already running through parts of the building.

According to staff members, when they were coming in to work, the lot was already secured by the fire department. They had no idea what was going on inside. All they could do was hope and pray that it wasn't as bad as it looked like it could be.

The alarm did trigger the sprinklers though much of the building. Parts of the building, had extensive damage due to the sprinkler system going off. Computers, drywall and other office furniture don't get along well with water so there was quite a bit of damage. Firefighters had to access all parts of the building to make sure the smoldering in the attic wasn't spreading.  If the sprinklers had activated in the radio studios, damage would have most likely been catastrophic.

Nearly all the businesses in the building had some damage. Some, more extensive than others. Except for The Lamb. The Lamb is Catholic Radio which is housed on the third floor of the building. They lost 2 network computer cards due to the direct hit by lightning, but other than that no damage at all.

When I heard that, it stood the hair on the back of my neck up. I found out that the radio station had been blessed by Bishop Paul Swain and  I knew of a statue of Mary they had watching over the facility right by the front door. I couldn't help but thinking there was some sort of divine help delivered that morning.

Culhane said 'when they discovered the extent of damage in other parts of the building compared to there's they gathered up for a prayer of thanks.'

Coincidence? Maybe. But being Catholic myself, I couldn't help but believe that Lamb Radio was indeed spared by the damaging lightning strike. Thanks to a little help from from the good Lord up above. And Mother Mary watching the front door.

 

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