Residents of The Paddock Club of Gainesville watched in shock Thursday afternoon as their apartment caught fire during a thunderstorm.
The blaze, allegedly the result of a lightning strike, affected 16 apartments. All residents and emergency personnel were unharmed, wrote Alachua County Sheriff's Office spokesman Art Forgey in an email.
“We were both sitting in the living room when it happened,” said Nate Sorrel, the boyfriend of a first floor resident. “My laptop shocked me when the lightning struck.”
Residents of the Fort Clarke Blvd apartments reportedly felt “a rumble” at about 4:55 p.m., and went outside to see what was going on.
“None of the fire alarms worked,” said Holli Moore, Sorrel’s girlfriend and resident of the apartments. “I called 911.”
After being dispatched two minutes after ACSO was contacted, firefighters took 30 minutes to get water flowing for the now-charred building.
“No sprinklers are in the building,” Moore said. “The alarms didn’t go off.”
Flames reached both ends of the building, torching both levels of the two-story building.
The extent of the damage is being assessed, and affected residents have moved in with friends and family for the time being.
However, not all was lost. Moore stood a safe distance from the burning building, clutching her pristine black lockbox in the rain, which contained her personal documents.
“I do have to say, I do give the fire department props,” said Moore. “Everything important to me is in this box, and they went in and got it for me.”
The extent of the damages to the building is currently being assessed, but the fire burned to both ends of the building
