Lightning in Cobb County, Georgia

Several newspapers, including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Marietta Daily Journal, the Columbus Ledger Enquirer, and the Macon Telegraph, as well as the Cobb county Emergency Management Agency and local Atlanta TV stations, reported on a lightning strike and subsequent death to a 49-year old woman from Marietta who was hiking in the Kennesaw National Battlefield park. The woman was hiking on Kennesaw Mountain in the National Battlefield park with her husband and dog. No rain was falling at the time, but thunderstorms surrounded the area with considerable cloud-to-ground lightning activity. The lightning struck the woman at 6:52 pm EDT while she was approximately 30 feet ahead of her husband around a bend in the trail. Her husband found her flat on the ground, immediately after the strike, unconscious, but still alive at the time. She was immediately transported to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead on arrival. In addition to this incident, two homes in the Marietta area were set on fire by lightning strikes during this same round of thunderstorms.