6-story Jesus Statue Struck By Lightening in Ohio

Click to read full story from Yahoo News

MONROE, Ohio – A six-story-tall statue of Jesus Christ with his arms raised along a highway was struck by lightning in a thunderstorm Monday night and burned to the ground, police said.

The "King of Kings" statue, one of southwest Ohio's most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.

The lightning strike set the statue ablaze around 11:15 p.m., Monroe police dispatchers said.

The sculpture, 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed touch down Jesuse because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained early Tuesday.

The fire spread from the statue to an adjacent amphitheater but was confined to the attic area, and no one was injured, police Chief Mark Neu said. The fire department would release a monetary damage estimate Tuesday, he said.

Travelers on Interstate 75 often were startled to come upon the huge statue by the roadside, but many said America needs more symbols like it. So many people stopped at the church campus that church officials had to build a walkway to accommodate them.

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JMC Ministries Response

This is just really strange news but it is true, you just can't make this stuff up. Over the past almost 2 weeks now, we have been having really severe thunderstorms, tornadoes all kinds of crazy weather. The lightening has been so bad, it has been striking so much when we've had storms that we are not surprised that this happened.

Our mom was in her home 2 days ago and it started to rain suddenly lightening struck. It struck so close to her house that it blinded her, made her body tingle all over, and it even made the magnetic kitchen alarm on her refrigerator go off. She said she's never experienced anything like that before.

Just north of Columbus last week a families home was struck by lightening and they didn't even know it until they saw smoke coming off their roof. It had caught their roof and attic on fire when it struck.

We are suppose to get more storms this week over the weekend so please pray for us here in Ohio that no more lightening strikes and kills Jesus or destroys anymore homes.