Lightning took out much of the communication equipment at Forest Park’s firehouse, after a strong storm blew through the area earlier Friday morning.
It is not entirely clear, at this point, if the firehouse was hit by lighting. Mayor Anthony Calderone suggested that the bolt may simply have been close enough that a shock was felt. But the telephones, radio and data systems were “temporarily impacted,” he said.
Fire Chief Steve Glinke said the experience did not affect any operations because the department has backup equipment to deal with outages.
“It’s a nice exercise in continuity of services … it’s nice to see the systems were operating as planned,” Glinke said.
“We switch 911 over to Oak Park and River Forest … The radio we just switch over to another frequency,” he said. In the case of the former, the village operates on a shared emergency-call system with Oak Park and River Forest. Glinke said no major emergency calls were received.
Calderone said that he didn’t think the building was actually hit by lightning.
“More often there’s going to be some physical signs, generally signs of scorching or fire,” he said. “We don’t have either.”
