By RUSS OLIVO

MILLVILLE — Lightning struck a chimney at 40 Central St. Thursday afternoon, toppling a 30-foot stack of bricks and mortar that crashed through the roof of the dwelling while a half a dozen people were inside, residents said.

Luckily, no one was injured because the bricks fell through a portion of the roof above an L-shaped wing that is only used for storage, said Mary Lou Tetreault, who lives in the two-story house with her family.
The chimney had been hugging the exterior of the house and was used to vent exhaust from the boiler. The force of the lightning bolt apparently knocked over the masonry column. Some of the bricks fell on top of the house, leaving a jagged hole in the roof that was about eight feet wide in some places.
Some of the bricks also landed on a breezeway for a back entrance, causing the structure to become detached from the main frame of the house. Some landed on the ground nearby, piled in chunks loosely joined together by mortar. Still others overshot the roof entirely, landing in a neighbor’s yard.
At about 3 p.m., Tetreault said, she was in the kitchen making a tuna sandwich when a thunderstorm passed through. It was raining pretty hard, she said.
“We just heard a little thunder, then kaboom,” said Tetreault. “Then we saw all this dirt flying everywhere.”
It was frightening when she heard the noise and the house shook a little, she said, adding, “It made me jump.”
Her son, Arthur Tetreault, 25, was in another room talking to his father when he heard “a big boom.”
“We thought maybe furniture or something had fallen over,” he said.
Lt. Steve Furno of the Millville Fire Department said a neighbor called the station at 3:01 p.m. and told firefighters she thought lightning had struck the chimney. Furno said it was the second residential lightning strike in town during the recent spate of unsettled weather. Two days earlier, he said, lightning struck a garage on Lorraine Lane, starting a small fire in the roof and blowing out the tire of a vehicle parked inside.
It’s been some time since he can remember so many problems associated with thunderstorms in the wooded village, said Furno.
A rambling, white Colonial, 40 Central St. was built in 1742 and is owned by ARW Realty Trust, according to a man at the scene who identified himself as R. Wright, one of the trustees. After surveying the damage, Wright guessed it might cost $30,000 for repairs, but he said he was planning to contact his insurance company for an official estimate.
The roof that was damaged was brand new, according to Wright, who nevertheless seemed philosophical about the run-in with Mother Nature. He was smiling as he prepared to temporarily seal up the hole with a waterproof tarp.
“What’re you going to do?” said Wright. “It was an act of God.”