Gretel Ehrlich |
 Dave Thurlow, Host |
I'm Dave Thurlow and this is The Weather Notebook. When a lightning strike survivor is also an articulate interpreter of nature, they offer insight into a powerful weather phenomenon. Award winning author Gretel Ehrlich is such a person and she wrote about her 1991 experience with several million volts of electricity in a book called "A Match to the Heart." We spoke to her recently from her Santa Barbara, California home.
GE: "It's not as uncommon as people think. It's just that a lot of people get the kind of side splash effect, you know, kind of knocked over or something, but they're not hurt at all. And other people, a lot of other people get killed. So there's not as much reporting back about the actual experience or the direct hit. You know, on the one hand it's incredible to me that it really happened to me even though I know it do, but it sort of seems odd that a bolt of lightning would find me and hit me of all the things it could be attracted to."
DT: Do you have any kind of resentment towards nature now? What were your feelings about thunder and lightning before...say in general before you were struck and say, immediately before you were struck.
GE: "No, I've been out in thunderstorms a lot. I just thought 'well, if you're going to lead the outdoor life, you've got to come face to face with all the things that it brings.' I never felt resentment, it was sort of the ultimate kind of intimacy."
Ms. Ehrlich's book again is titled "A Match to the Heart." The Weather Notebook is made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Additional support comes from Subaru, maker of the all weather legacy. Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive.