July 27, 2004
By SEAN COCKERHAM
Anchorage Daily News

JUNEAU -- A bolt of lightning flashed through the State Office Building during a rare and terrific Juneau thunderstorm Saturday. It missed workers by just feet and has knocked out the voice mail for most of the state offices here.

Thunder shook houses, mudslides tumbled down mountainsides, and a reported 1.85 inches of rain fell in a single hour just north of downtown. National Weather Service forecasters in Juneau said that might be an all-time rainfall record for Alaska.

Mike Hawkins, a state systems programming manager, was installing software on the fifth floor of the State Office Building when the lighting hit at 12:50 p.m. Hawkins said he had just glanced up from his keyboard.

"Then, wham! ... It was a large red flash and a boom at the same time," he said.

Hawkins said he was less than 10 feet away, lost his hearing for a minute or so and was in brief shock. He compared it to a bomb blast, like the last thing a person might ever see.

"I don't get freaked out much," Hawkins said. "But I don't want to go through that again."

The electromagnetic force changed colors on some the computer video screens, he said. Reds turned to yellow, yellows to orange. But there was no fire and the computer system turned out to be fine, he said.

The lightning did take a baseball-sized chunk out of the building.

"It's sitting on my desk as a paperweight," said Stan Herrera, state technology director.

Herrera said he has lived in Juneau for more than 20 years and has never seen anything like the storm that enveloped the city Saturday. "No pun intended, I was pretty shocked," Herrera said.

Busy too.

The lighting strike destroyed wireless communications equipment on the roof. It also fried the state's Nortel phone switch on the fifth floor, knocking out phone service in Juneau state offices with a 465 prefix.

State technical staffers worked around the clock Saturday and Sunday. By the start of the workweek Monday, phone service was back for 6,486 of the 6,836 phones.

But voice mail was still not working for most of the state office phones in Juneau as of Monday afternoon. Herrera hopes to have it back by Wednesday.

The governor's office in the Capitol lost voice mail. But Becky Hultberg, spokeswoman for Gov. Frank Murkowski, said, "We can run the state without voice mail."

Saturday began as a typical drizzly summer day in Juneau. But the storm moved in fast, darkening the sky like someone turning down the dimmer switch on a lamp.

The drizzle turned into pounding sheets of rain, falling hard enough to tear up gravel driveways.

The crack of thunder echoed off the mountains that surround Gastineau Channel, sending dogs and cats scrambling for cover and shaking homes on Douglas Island.

Hikers caught in the storm described a sound like a train and seeing a mudslide about 50 feet across tearing into a popular recreation area. The streams and waterfalls became chocolate torrents.

Peter McKay, out hiking with friends, said the wind started howling and the rain came in sideways. "It was a little dicey for awhile," he said. "We were trying to get out of there as quickly as we could.

He said he hasn't seen such a storm in the 20 years he's lived in Juneau.

"It rained as hard as I've ever seen it here," said George Reifenstein, who has lived in the rain forest of Juneau for the past 35 years.

Reifenstein is general manager of the Mount Roberts tramway, which shut down during the lighting.
When it came time to restart, Reifenstein said, the tram wouldn't run; it turned out lightning had struck the tower at the top.

He said it took about three hours to get the tram moving. That left tourists stranded in the restaurant and gift shop at the top. One cruise ship delayed leaving town to wait for its passengers to come down, he said.
City officials and police didn't report any injuries.

Lightning is rare in Southeast Alaska. "Once every two years, we will see a strike, ... and it's usually one little bolt," said Mike Mitchell, a National Weather Service forecaster in Juneau.

This was the second time Juneau has seen lightning this summer. Mitchell said the recent hot weather is the reason.

Water surface temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska, normally in the low to mid 50s, are now around 60 degrees, Mitchell said.

A cold air mass reacted with the unusual warmth from the water, he said. The result: instant thunderstom.
By late afternoon the skies were clearing.

Daily News reporter Sean Cockerham can be reached at <mailto:scockerham@adn.com>scockerham@adn.com.

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