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According to the Corpus Christi Fire Department, no injuries – including pets – were reported in the fire at the apartment complex near Wooldridge Road and Cimarron Boulevard.<\/p>\n
For resident Barbara Poland, the morning started like any other – until it didn’t.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI was sitting in the living room, waiting on my coffee to brew, and it was extremely loud,\u201d Poland said. \u201cAnybody that was asleep when it hit would have been awake. Just thunderous.\u201d<\/p>\n
Poland, a lifelong South Texan, said she has lived through numerous severe weather events including Hurricanes Celia and Carla over the years but had never experienced anything like Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
Moments later, a neighbor pounded on her door saying the building was on fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe building caught fire. When I opened the door, you could see and smell the smoke,\u201d Poland said. \u201cI didn\u2019t know it until I opened the door, even though it started right above my door, and so I grabbed my leash, my dog, had my phone in my hand, and got out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neighbors nearby said they also heard the loud boom and pointed to an indentation in the roof they believe may have been caused by the lightning strike.<\/p>\n
However, Corpus Christi firefighters say the official cause of the fire remains under investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis fire right now is currently under investigation, so we don\u2019t have a determination just yet,\u201d Corpus Christi Fire Department Battalion Chief Cody Eyring said. \u201cBut it\u2019s pretty common with thunderstorms rolling in, the power surges, you get electrical surges.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eyring said the fire damage was limited to two apartment units, later confirmed by Poland to be her apartment and the unit directly above hers, while several other units sustained flooding damage.<\/p>\n
Despite the damage and uncertainty about what comes next, Poland says she\u2019s thankful to have family in Corpus Christi she can stay with while the complex recovers.<\/p>\n
Still, she says she\u2019s trying to keep a positive attitude.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, I\u2019m 72 and one thing I found from living this long, you can laugh about stuff or you can cry, just laugh about it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She was even joking with apartment staff just hours after the fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cI looked at her and I said, \u2018Are we gonna get a discount on our rent this month?\u2019 She just laughed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A reported lightning strike sparked a fire and flooding at the Hampton Port Apartments in Corpus Christi Wednesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-311570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}