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Woman rushes to help when Northville condos struck by lightning, catch fire

'I wanted to save my neighbors,' Katherine Lawrence says

NORTHVILLE, Mich. – “I can tell you, I heard a big bang around 12 something, like lightning or something that hit someplace,” said Katherine Lawrence.

That’s the lightning strike Katherine Lawrence is talking about ‘Mother Nature’ put on a show late Friday night, in a Northville neighborhood and it was all caught on security camera nearby, “Around 3 something, I had my back window open to the back room, because I like to hear the rain and I thought I heard a crackling, like a bonfire, “said Lawrence.

That’s when she went to her window, “I can see my neighbor next door, flames coming from the back of the house,” said Lawrence.

She immediately got up, woke up her sister who was staying the night and ran outside. She knocked on her neighbor’s door to try and wake them up, “Pound, pound and you could just see the flames coming in there, they’re an older couple. They finally came out, and I just went from house to house, and bang on their doors, to wake them up. We’re all attached to each other,” said Lawrence.

Nancy Foley lives nearby. She woke up at about 3:30 a.m. to firetrucks and huge flames, just four door down, “I saw all of the smoke and the fire billowing up behind. I wasn’t sure which condo. From the flames, you could see sparks going up and I heard a boom, like something inside the house might have exploded,” said Foley.

Now that the smoke cleared, neighbors are calling Lawrence and ‘She-ro’. Some even asking why did she jump into action? “I don’t know. I just wanted to, it was just like Oh my gosh, we got to get everybody out and I wanted to save my neighbors, it was just something I automatically did. We can always replace our things, our home, but we can’t replace lives,” said Lawrence.


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