Lightning is the likely cause for the house fire at 9496 Poppy Lane in the Four Bridges subdivision in Liberty Twp. It sparked a fire that caused significant damage to the roof and garage. Fire Chief Paul Stumpf said total damages to the home and its contents are around $375,000, he said.
Lightning from a severe thunderstorm that this the region late Wednesday afternoon was also the likely cause for a couple Mason house fires and several car accidents in the area.
The strength of Wednesday afternoon’s thunderstorm was due to “a combination of things that lined up at the same time,” said National Weather Service Meteorologist Don Hughes. Winds shifting and the warm atmosphere created “a lot of instability,” he said. “There’s a 70 percent chance of rain storms Thursday afternoon and a 50 percent chance of heavy rain Friday morning, “but not as heavy as (Thursday),” Hughes said. “You’ll see some thunderstorms and showers, but it will be somewhat spotty.”
Many homes and businesses were without power during the storm. As of 8:15 p.m., Duke Energy reported on its website just under 60,000 customers in the Tri-State were without power, which includes 868 in Butler County – which does not include the city of Hamilton – and 675 in Warren County.
Steven M. Fields, Hamilton senior utilities engineer technician, said about 750 electric customers were without power during the height of the storm, which started around 3:30 p.m. As of 7 p.m. Wednesday, 10 customers were still without power.
“The outages were not concentrated, they were very sporadic so it slowed the restoration process,” Fields said.
Warren County had as many as 3,900 Duke Energy customers without power during the thunderstorm Wednesday afternoon. The county had a number of poles and wires down throughout the area, said Warren County Communications Center supervisor Rob Ramby.
The weather was the cause for several accidents, but it also caused an alley way in the 1000 block of Symmes Avenue in Hamilton to collapse. Kathi Patrick, of Symmes Avenue, said the collapsed portion of the alley is only a couple feet from her home and created an 8-inch hole in the ground.
“(City crews) came and brought barricades and left so no one can go down the alley,” she said.
Wednesday afternoon’s thunderstorm dumped more than an inch of rain in south central and southwestern part of the county, according to the National Weather Service. The north central and northwest part of Butler County recorded no rain. Nearly an inch of rain fell in Warren County, most of it being in the central portion.
July has been dry and hot since it began. Less than an inch of rain has been recorded since July 1, according to the National Weather Service. And only couple of days in the region has had temperature under 90 degrees since July 1.
This is the second time in three weeks storms struck the region. On June 29, heavy winds and rain slammed the area late that afternoon and lasted for about two hours. Thousands were without power as a result of the storm.
The continuation of 90-degree-plus temperatures will continue today, but Friday’s high will be in the mid-80s — until the weekend. The highs for Saturday, Sunday and Monday are forecasted to be in the low 90s.
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