Aaron Green, who lives off of Resweber Highway near Parks, holds chunks of bark literally blown from a pecan tree by lighting. The poor tree must be getting used to it.
Aaron Green, who lives off of Resweber Highway near Parks, holds chunks of bark literally blown from a pecan tree by lighting. The poor tree must be getting used to it.
t_news@bellsouth.net
PARKS – Don’t tell Aaron Green that lightning never strikes the same place twice.
Monday evening when a thunderstorm rumbled across Bayou Teche from the west, and the sky flashed white and a simultaneous boom shook the trailer, he calmly looked at his wife, Amelie, and said:
“Betcha it hit the pecan tree.”
Sure enough, in a matter of moments Aaron’s mother-in-law, Eunice Borel, phoned from next door with a hair-raising account.
She had been watching the weather roll in on the back stoop of her trailer, which is only about 50 feet from said pecan tree. When the lightning hit, it blew chunks of inch-thick bark at her like shrapnel.
Standing under the tree now, you can see the path taken by the current, splitting the bark down to and charring the sapwood beneath.
Doesn’t surprise Aaron. Same thing happened to that same tree last July. And about two months before that, too.
“When I was a kid in Breaux Bridge, I used to watch lightning hit the same spot in a cotton field,” he says.
“We never knew why it always hit that spot instead of someplace higher, except when they were drilling for seismograph they said they found sulphur. Maybe it’s something in the ground that attracts it.”
He points to a couple of trees across the road that are significantly higher than his star-crossed pecan.
“Now, why this one and not one of them?” He just shakes his head.
Some things might not be knowable, but one thing is: lightning will come back for seconds, and even thirds.
Post a Comment