You may not know if your building or apartment complex was struck by lightning

DENVER (KDVR) – On a dark and stormy day in Colorado, lightning lights up the sky, making it seem like day for a moment.

If your living room seems more like a concert hall with strobe lights of lightning and thundering bass, you might be wondering how close that is.

Colorado is one of the states with the highest risk of dying from a lightning strike. It may even hit your building without you noticing.

For this reason, many apartment complexes and buildings in Denver have lightning rods.

“Almost every major building downtown, at least 80% of them,” said Ed McDonald, owner of McDonald’s lightning protectioncalled.

McDonald said a person probably wouldn’t know if lightning struck a building using a lightning rod as long as it was installed correctly.

Without one, McDonald said, “It does an awful lot of damage or burns it to the ground.”

Lightning rods are designed to form the highest point in the area. It doesn’t attract more lightning, but if there’s lightning in the area, it absorbs the strike.

“The idea is if lightning comes our way, the lightning rod would attract the strike and then the rod itself absorbs the energy,” said Dave Fraser, Pinpoint Weather’s chief meteorologist. “There are a whole series of electrical lines that then absorb this energy and distribute it in the ground.”

Fraser said if you get caught in a thunderstorm, you should stay away from tall objects and make yourself the smallest and lowest target to reduce the risk of being hit.