Lightning knocks out power

If you didn't sleep well Friday morning, you probably weren't alone.

An unusual summertime storm that hit the area brought with it plenty of lightning and thunder.

It also brought a handful of car accidents and a few power outages that extended well into late morning Friday.

In the 24-hour period ending at 5 p.m. Friday, Lodi's rainfall was measured at .05 inches.

Today's forecast calls for mostly sunny skies with a high of 88.

Temperatures are expected to climb into the mid-90s again Sunday. The average this time of year is 90.

In the 24 hours ending at 8 a.m. Friday, there were five injury and 12 non-injury accidents in the Stockton area, California Highway Patrol spokeswoman Diane O'Brien said.

Friday morning's downpour may have been to blame for at least two minor injury accidents south of Lodi, the CHP said.

An accident occurred on northbound Highway 99 south of East Armstrong Road, happened just before 6 a.m. when a white sedan spun out, likely because of standing water on the roadway, the CHP said.

A second one was reported around 8:30 a.m. on Lower Sacramento Road, just north of East Eight Mile Road. Additional details were unavailable.

There was virtually no Lodi city street flooding, said Mike Watson, street supervisor.

"We had a few slow drains, and they were cleared up," he said.

Many area residents lost power at one time during the storm.

About 1,300 customers in Woodbridge and Acampo experienced a brief outage as a result of the storm, between 3 p.m. Thursday and 9 a.m. Friday. All but seven had electricity restored by 11 a.m. Friday.

In all, 2,200 customers throughout San Joaquin County were still without power at that time, Pacific Gas & Electric spokeswoman Carey Madill said.

"It was mostly sporadic individual transformers blown out, so the outages are all over the place," she said. "That's pretty typical with the kind of storm we had."

In addition to transformers that caught on fire, Madill said electrical wires were knocked down throughout the county.

In the Galt area, there were still outages Friday morning, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District said.

Exact figures were unavailable, but a spokesman said Galt residents were among the 300 Sacramento County customers who lost power due to power poles being hit by lightning.

But in Lodi, there was little problem with outages.

Thursday night, the city-owned utility lost three transformers because of lightning strikes, said Sonny Harris, utility service operator. The outage affected only 84 customers.

"They weren't out that long," he said, adding that all three transformers were quickly repaired.

"I guess we were just lucky."

Lodi Fire Battalion Chief George Juelch said nothing happened overnight Thursday that compared to the events of Thursday afternoon.

At that time a huge palm tree on Kenway Court was apparently struck by lightning, while a utility pole at Lodi Avenue and Beckman Road was also destroyed by fire.