Last Thursday’s thunderstorm made headlines as the National Weather Service reported more than 2,500 lightning strikes in the Seattle area. On Vashon, the storm rolled through, wreaking havoc for at least one island couple.

Marilyn and Rich White had their landline, television, computer and coffee maker die after a lightning bolt struck a 100-foot tree near their driveway. It left a 20-foot column of wood and multiple large branches in its wake. But the electric current, which can be in the hundreds of millions of volts, also followed water to their septic tank where it disintegrated the pipe leading to their home and the pipe’s cap.

“It found some water in the pipe and blew off the cap, and we were finding pieces of it all over our yard,” she said. “We have a hole in our shed.”

Marilyn likened the sound to a bomb and said all of the lights in their home went off almost immediately.

She said the appliances were plugged into surge protectors, but according to the National Weather Service, typical surge protectors will not protect equipment from a lightning strike. Lightning generates electric surges so high that it can damage electronic equipment some distance from the actual strike.

Marilyn said she had never had anything like it happen before.

“When we finally got our wits about us, my husband checked our circuit breaker and it had flipped all of the circuits,” she said.

Neighbors immediately pitched in to help, she said, and thanked Phil Middling of Greentree Dozing and Brad (BJ) Nelson for their work, as well as Roggenbuck Construction for returning her phone call.

Tree debris was cleaned up and a new septic pipe was laid, and Marilyn said she and her husband were “back in business” by Saturday.