Central Texas Jail Struck by Lightning During Wednesday’s Storms
It's only been open since last year, but the state-of-the-art Bosque County Law Enforcement Center is still susceptible to lightning strikes.
During Wednesday's storms, the tower at the Bosque County facility was struck by lightning mid-afternoon. The phones, cameras, and computers all went down in what is being called a major outage at the law enforcement center. The lightning strike scorched and melted the communications equipment altogether.
Deputies had to communicate with their handheld radios and had to take suspects through alternate entrances to get them in and out of the jail. The staff had to wait on several service crews to restore and repair equipment before they could get back to normal working conditions.
KWTX reports crews from NextLink and At&t had to replace equipment before the facility could get services back online. Even the electronic doors stopped working forcing deputies to rely on the giant key-rings of old to move about the jail.
As the week comes to an end, the facility expects to head into the weekend being able to accommodate normal visitation over the holiday.