Doorbell camera records Alabama man’s close encounter with lightning
The resident’s close brush with Mother Nature was captured by his Ring camera — and he told AccuWeather about his reaction in that moment
This man was caught on a Ring camera watching the storm from his porch until a frighteningly close lightning strike forced him to immediately retreat inside on July 21 in Pike Road, Alabama.
When Carl Cody gazed outside his window this past Friday night, the sky seemed lighter than usual. Cody has always been fascinated with stormy weather, so he thought he’d walk out onto his porch and take a peek.
Then lightning struck.
“I saw one [lightning bolt] off to the right and kind of thought to myself, ‘Holy…’” Cody told AccuWeather. “Then I just happened to look left, and a couple seconds later it was like a flash-bang went off.”
Cody’s Ring camera captured a video of him watching a storm outside his house in Pike Road, a town southeast of Montgomery, Alabama. In the video, Cody steps into the frame before a lightning bolt strikes nearby, accompanied by a bright flash of light. A loud clap of thunder is audible before the video shows Cody retreating back into his house.
The National Weather Service warned earlier in the day that thunderstorms were expected to develop across Alabama, with damaging winds, heavy rainfall and frequent lightning among the predicted threats. Montgomery was depicted in an area of “marginal risk” for those weather events for both Friday and Saturday, according to the NWS.
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Despite the close call, Cody said he wouldn’t be wary of stepping outside to watch storms in the future.
“I’ll go outside every time it rains,” he said. “Until I get struck, I’ll go out and watch. If I could, I’d be a storm chaser. I’d love to hear tornadoes and everything else if I could.”
But even for Cody, the storm in Alabama felt severe.
“Normally, it doesn’t scare me very much, but something that close — I got myself inside pretty quick,” he said.
Since 2013, there's been an average of 20 deaths a year from lightning in the United States, according to the National Weather Service. In 2023, the U.S. reached seven lightning-related deaths Monday after a New York man was struck while sitting under a tree.
In the event of a thunderstorm, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recommends staying indoors and staying low as the best defenses against lightning. And if you hear thunder, NOAA advises you should immediately find shelter.
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