Florida Father Urges Loved Ones to ‘Hold Them Tight’ After Lightning Deaths

A Florida father is urging people to embrace their loved ones after a lightning strike killed his wife and two-year-old daughter in Margate last week. Kameron Glasgow said Kenya Glasgow, 31, and their daughter Kennedi were standing in the driveway of a family member’s home on August 23 when lightning struck them. Glasgow was only a few feet away and said he felt some effects from the strike. Kennedi’s twin sister, Kensli, was inside a nearby parked family car and was not injured. Kenya and Kennedi were taken to different hospitals, but authorities said both died shortly after arriving. At a candlelight memorial held Saturday at a Margate elementary school, Glasgow spoke with local television station WSVN about the loss. He described Kenya as exceptionally caring and said she made people feel loved regardless of how long she had known them. Glasgow also said Kensli’s young age might be helping her deal with the absence of her twin sister, who had been her companion. In a social-media post after the deaths, he wrote that he had lost his best friend and that Kensli had lost hers. Addressing others through WSVN, Glasgow encouraged anyone with a person like Kenya in their life to hold them close because such people are rare. He later thanked the community for its support and urged people to hug those they love and tell them so. The National Weather Service warns that lightning can travel as far as 25 miles from a storm, including areas where rain is not falling. It advises people to move indoors whenever they can hear thunder, because that means they are close enough to be struck. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that roughly 37 million lightning strikes occur in the United States each year. The agency says an individual’s chance of being struck is less than one in a million, and that nearly 90% of lightning-strike victims survive.