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Two men and two women were taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries Thursday evening after an apparent lightning strike in Lafayette Square, north of the White House, according to the D.C. Fire Department.
The four adults were found shortly before 7 p.m. in the center of the park, about 100 feet from the Andrew Jackson statue, fire department spokesman Vito Maggiolo said.
All four people were taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.
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Authorities said the precise cause of his injuries remains under investigation.
The lightning was triggered by a strong thunderstorm that swept through the district shortly before 7 p.m. The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for much of the Beltway between 6:30 and 7:15 p.m., warning of threat of damaging wind gusts. up to 60 mph and quarter hail.
Chris Vagasky, an analyst at Vaisala, which operates a national lightning network, said in a message that there was “a 6-strike flash near the White House that struck the same spot on the ground” at 6:49 p.m. . He explained that it means six. Individual surges of electricity reached the same point on the ground in half a second.
Numerous thunderstorms, containing frequent lightning, swept through the region Thursday evening after temperatures soared into the mid-90s earlier in the day, prompting a heat advisory. Heat indices, a measure of how hot you feel taking humidity into account, reached between 100 and 110 degrees.
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The heat-fueled storms unleashed a 58 mph wind gust at Reagan National Airport and downed trees around Winchester, Columbia and Baltimore. The torrents also led to multiple reports of flooded roads around Baltimore.
Lightning kills 23 people in the United States in an average year and has caused nine fatalities through 2022.
This is a developing story and will be updated.