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Power surge prevention<\/p>\nThe Brief<\/p>\n
A Texas City family is speaking out after lightning struck their home, sparking a fire and causing extensive damage.<\/p>\n
Mia Ortiz says the lightning hit her bedroom while she was there with her 3-month-old son.<\/p>\n
Homeowners can take steps to protect their homes as officials say there’s been an uptick in house fires caused by lightning.<\/p>\n
TEXAS CITY, TX – A Texas City family is speaking out after lightning struck their home, sparking a fire and causing extensive damage.<\/p>\n
The fire happened Monday along Sun Coral Drive. The family says the experience was terrifying, but they are thankful no one was hurt.<\/p>\n
Lightning strike causes Texas City fire<\/p>\n
What we know<\/p>\n
Mia Ortiz says the lightning hit her bedroom while she was there with her 3-month-old son.<\/p>\n
“It was a big flash of light with fire. It’s like I was watching fireworks, literally,” Ortiz said. “It was scary. It was one of the scariest moments for me and my baby.”<\/p>\n
Ortiz said she and her baby were lying in bed when they heard a loud pop and saw the lightning.<\/p>\n
“We’ve never experienced anything like that before,” she said. “I heard a big pop, a huge pop. I was shocked, in tears.”<\/p>\n
Ortiz grabbed her baby and ran into the kitchen. Moments later, the family noticed smoke coming from the attic and rushed outside.<\/p>\n
“I was just thinking about my family, my baby. I was trying to get out of there because I knew it wasn’t safe,” Ortiz said. “It’s really hard. It’s been really overwhelming.”<\/p>\n
Power surge prevention<\/p>\n
What you can do<\/p>\n
Fire officials say they have recently seen an uptick in homes being struck by lightning and causing fires.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Victor Boudreaux, assistant chief with the Santa Fe Fire Department, says homeowners can take steps to help protect their homes and electronics from power surges caused by lightning.<\/p>\n
“If you have a surge protector for the whole house, your main electrical panel should have a surge protector that should help alleviate the voltage increase from the lightning strike,” Boudreaux said.<\/p>\n
He also recommends plugging sensitive electronics into individual surge protectors to help prevent damage from a power surge.<\/p>\n
In this case, Ortiz’s family says their home suffered extensive damage and many of their personal belongings were destroyed.<\/p>\n
The family says the community has been very supportive as they work to rebuild their lives.<\/p>\n
The Source<\/p>\n
Texas City resident Mia Ortiz and Santa Fe FD Assistant Chief Victor Boudreaux.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Brief A Texas City family is speaking out after lightning struck their home, sparking a fire and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[147742,139160,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-424873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-mia-ortiz","tag-ortiz","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424873","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=424873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}