PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. – A relaxing Sunday morning for one Florida family took a bizarre turn when a thunderstorm pushed through their area.
Marylou Ward, her husband and their three dogs were in listening to the rain and rumbles of thunder when a loud bang shook through their home and even rattled the neighbor’s home.
"It was the loudest noise I've ever heard,” Ward said. “It just went boom. We got out of bed and came over here and the toilet was laying on the floor."
Her porcelain toilet had blown to pieces.
Ward’s neighbor, Charles Allen, said the explosion even rattled his home.
"The house shook so hard, that plates and pictures came flying off the walls," Allen said.
According to an expert with A-1 Affordable Plumbing - the company helping repair Ward's pipes – a lightning strike near the septic tank caused the explosion.
The expert said although it’s rare (even more so for homeowners on city water), the lightning strike combined with methane gas from human waste caused the bomb-like effect.
Ward said she hopes people will think twice about going to the bathroom during a storm.
"I already sent a picture out to my kids and said, ‘Don't do it! Here's the proof of why you shouldn't go near the bathrooms in a thunderstorm,’” Ward said. "I'm not taking any showers and not going to the bathroom … Not when it's thunder storming and down here, that's a lot."
Posted by A-1 Affordable Plumbing inc. on Sunday, August 4, 2019