Monday, August 5, 2013



Our son and daughter-in-law lost their entire house to a fire early on the morning of June 21.

Lightning struck the electrical entrance box in the garage of our son David's house. The natural gas entrance to the house was fifteen feet away, but the lightning nevertheless found a way to burst the corrugated stainless steel tubing (CSST) that was used at the entrance and throughout the house.

It turns out that this is a national issue, with new homes built with CSST going up in flames when lightning strikes nearby. The lightning pokes a hole in the tubing, ignites the gas, and the result is a gas-powered blowtorch inside the home's wall or basement.

Here is a short Channel 11 story about our son's situation that aired Friday night:
www.kare11.com/news/article/1034149/391/Cause-of-Maplewood-fire-serves-warning-to-others.

David and Caroline are going to rebuild, but the gas lines will be good old black iron pipe!

2 comments:

DawnB said...

This is so horrible. I am so sorry to hear. My prayers are with them.

Sunshine said...

Thanks, Dawn!
We all hate to have bad stuff happen to our kids!

And it gets worse: now the questions about the cause of the fire have caused another month delay in new construction.

And last week a hail storm caused considerable damage to their newly leased car. Oh dear.