Thanks to all here for the concern. I think all the fire fighters have been released, but I'll find out more about what happened after the next school board meeting -- I serve there with the wife of the fire chief. I did hear he wasn't one of the men hit. The names of the men affected haven't been released because they want them to have time to rest and recover. Lucy has moved in with her son. Our community is very tight in times of trouble, so I'm sure help will be coming in from quite a few people.
We didn't get much more lightning yesterday, but it has continued to rain -- not as fast but definitely looking forward to the end of this storm.
I was thinking that Lucy had a shingle roof, but saw in the photos that it was metal -- we have a metal roof, too. I now might run a ground strap from the lowest corner to earth rod. We are surrounded by 100' trees, but still, I might feel a little easier with a grounded roof.
I used to live on a boat, and common practice, as Scuba1 mentions is running a ground line from the mast to ground or from the chainplates to ground, if an aluminum mast. My boat was a houseboat I had built and the aluminum rail was the highest point, and that was run to ground. I lived aboard in Florida for several years, and saw plenty of thunderstorms.
Andrew the weather has been really strange lately -- hurricane Irene floods the state, then a 3 month drought, then the worst winter I've seen in 20 years, and now a double lightning strike on a neighbor and first responders. Well, we're due for "normalcy" whatever that is now, I hope.
Vancouver and Vermont are understandably confused with each other -- only about 3000 km separates us!

But since I've just been told I've been calling Simon " Steve" for a couple months now in the forum, I hope I can be forgiven for that

Apologies!