Lightning at the Lookout, by Kathy Ball

It was the wind that woke me up, howling, screaming through the old single-paned windows.  No amount of  caulking could prevent the outside elements from seeping through the cracks and crevices of this 1923 vintage lookout cabin.  Thinking that maybe the wind was a figment of my imagination, or maybe that it would simply end, I laid in bed a few moments longer.  Through half-closed eyes I began to see flashes of light.  “It couldn’t be,“ I thought, remembering the cloudless sunset hours before.  But sure enough – lightning!  I jumped from my bed and looked out across the midnight sky.  Constant flashes of cloud to cloud lightning lit up the moonless night surrounding the lookout   I listened for the rumbling sound of thunder.  Oddly, I could hear none.  The shutters attached to the cab shook and lifted as the wind swirled around the rock.  The wind seemed to be getting stronger. 

Knowing sleep would be impossible, I settled in to watch the show.  Downstrikes of lightning streaked from the heavens illuminating the granite peaks of the Mineral King mountain range.  Slowly the cells moved down the Kaweah River drainage and finally into the central valley, descending upon the quiet towns of Woodlake, Exeter, Kingsburg and points west.  Other lookouts, first Mule Peak, and then Tobias, began to call in their observations.  In hearing their voices, I recognized a certain kinship – a camaraderie of shared experience. The winds seemed to have calmed a bit and I got enough courage to venture outside to check the wind speed.  Slowly I crawled on all fours out onto the catwalk and held up the handheld anemometer above the railing into the easterly wind. My hair was whipping across my face, but by holding the flashlight  steady  I could read “42mph”.   Earlier the wind speeds must have been close to 50 or 60 mph. 

 July and August are the months for thunderstorm activity in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains. Typically, the mornings break clear and bright with nary a cloud in the startling blue sky.  By midmorning a few innocent looking wisps float by and slowly transform into puffy white cumulus clouds.  Then, as the San Joaquin Valley air warms and rises, the clouds quickly become more well-defined, the tops growing vertically while underneath getting heavy, flat and dark  Finally, great anvil-topped giants rise mightily and unleash their fury producing afternoon thunderstorms over the Sierra.

This day would be different.  Dawn broke to already building cumulus  to the east of the lookout.   By 10:00, ominous cumulonimbus clouds rumbled and the skies darkened with the threat of rain.  Winds, originally coming from the west to northwest, calmed then shifted to a more southerly direction.  A few leading drops of rain splattered the lookout.  I began preparing the lookout for lightning safety by shutting off the electricity and unplugging the telephone. Jagged bolts of lightning flashed before me.  I counted, “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi…”  Kaboom!  The strikes were less than a mile away.

It was time I called dispatch and got off the radios.  Suddenly I noticed a change in the air – the winds had stilled, I could hear a faint but distinct buzz coming from the ungrounded metal awnings.  The hair on my arms and head started to rise with static electricity.  It took a few seconds before the realization of what was happening hit me – “Uh, oh, here it comes,” I muttered. BANG!  The tremendously loud, sharp sound of lightning directly hitting the lookout reverberated through the little cabin while the bright flash of light temporarily blinded me.  I screamed.  My dog Annabelle leaped onto the bed, shivering in fright and non-comprehension.  The radios went dead.  A few more bolts struck within yards of the lookout, then moved off to the west.  Voice quivering, I called Sequoia dispatch on my portable radio and reported on the lightning activity and the fried base radio.  Then, laughing I shook my head in wonder at my life as a fire lookout