Lightning strikes next to home, causes some damage

NILES, Mich. -- During Tuesday morning’s storms, lightning struck the ground next to the garage at a home on Bertrand Road in Niles, Michigan. It caused some damage to their home.

Craig Kizer was fast asleep when the storm rolled through.

"It was 4:30 in the morning and we heard this loud crash,” said Kizer. "Come to find out I had seven breakers blown; kitchen window was cracked; I had all this mud on the garage door, and I had this big hole right here at the end of the garage. It blew that concrete there, blew the color on our TV set, knocked out the phones, it knocked out my internet. And we have a nice hole back here.”

The scariest damage for Kizer was to the garage itself.

Normally lightning strikes tall objects because positively charged particles travel up them to connect with their negatively charged counterparts coming down from the storm above. But it's unpredictable and can have deadly results.

"It's something I have never seen before and I hope I never see it again,” said Kizer.

It's best to go indoors if you see lightning.

But you aren’t 100-percent safe inside either.

Stay off of land line telephones and avoid taking a shower or bath during a lightning storm.