Cape May City Hall closes down for the day after lighting strikes building
CAPE MAY, N.J. (CBS) -- Cape May City Hall shut down for the day after the building was struck by lightning during an electrical storm Friday morning, the city's Office of Emergency Management said.
The Cape May Office of Emergency Management said a severe thunderstorm brought tremendous amounts of rainfall, flooding streets and activating municipal flood pumps. However, since the rainfall was coming down in torrents, the flood pumps couldn't keep up.
During the storm, the OEM said, "numerous lightning strikes throughout Cape Island" made contact with buildings, including City Hall.
The lightning strike caused a level of damage to the municipal building, which is currently being reviewed, OEM wrote in a news release Friday afternoon.
Mayor of Cape May, Zack Mullock, wrote on Facebook that specifically, the building's VHF antenna tower was struck.
This morning the Cape May City Hall VHF antenna tower was struck by lightning. There were no injuries and everyone is safe. City Hall will be closed for the day Thank you
Posted by Zack Mullock on Friday, July 12, 2024
OEM said while the damage assessment is ongoing, City Hall will be closed for the remainder of the day, adding it will reopen Monday at 7:30 a.m.
No other buildings were damaged during the electrical storm, although the city did say there were a "limited number of power outages" in Cape May that Atlantic City Electric crews were working on repairing.
There were no injuries reported as a result of the storm.
Cape May County Roads Department is also repairing traffic lights that stopped operating due to storm impacts.