A week or two ago, a church in Baltimore was hit by lightning and
burned to shreds, other than the brick walls iiuc.

It turns out that they had remodeled the steeple within the past year.

It was the highest steeple in miles. It occurred to me that it would
have had a lightning rod, even in Baltimore.

It also occurred to me that maybe the contractor didn't recognize a
lightning rod when he saw one. Or disconnected it and forgot to
reconnect it.

What do you think?

(Today I heard on the radio, quoting the newspaper, that the church
was 12,000 dollars behind on the water bill and the mortgage was being
foreclosed, but last year it bought the minister a 150,000 dollar
Bentley. Maybe he tried to save money by hiring someone cheap? The
church is insured for 4 million and that bill is paid.)