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Two men and two women were taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries Thursday night after an apparent lightning strike in Lafayette Square, north of the White House, according to D.C. fire officials.
The four adults were found shortly before 7 p.m. in the center of the park, about 30 feet from the Andrew Jackson statue, fire spokesman Vito Maggiolo said.
All four were taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.
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The exact cause of their injuries remains under investigation, authorities said.
The lightning was triggered by a severe thunderstorm that swept through the area shortly before 7 p.m. The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for much of the Beltway between 6:30 a.m. and 7:15 p.m., warning of the threat of destructive winds gusting to 60 mph and quarter size hail.
Chris Vagasky, an analyst with Vaisala, which operates a national lightning network, said in a news release that there was “a 6-stroke lightning strike near the White House that struck the same point on the ground” at 6:49 p.m. He explained that this means six separate waves of electricity strike the same point on the ground within half a second.
Multiple storms containing frequent lightning swept through the area Thursday night after temperatures soared into the mid-to-upper 90s earlier in the day, prompting a heat advisory. Heat indices, a measure of how hot it feels taking humidity into account, reached 100 to 110 degrees.
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The hot storms unleashed wind gusts of up to 58 mph at Reagan National Airport and downed trees around Winchester, Columbia and Baltimore. The downpours also prompted numerous reports of flooded roads around Baltimore.
Lightning kills 23 people in the United States on average per year and has resulted in nine deaths so far in 2022.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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