"Wow! It hit the tower! I got it on camera!"

Every station's greatest nightmare is a direct lightning strike. WSIX/Nahville took one at their STL yesterday and it did huge damage. From Lon Helton's Country Aircheck:

Clear Channel/Nashville, which includes WSIX, was rocked by a lightning bolt that struck the cluster's STL today (8/20). The bolt knocked out power for a short time and fried equipment throughout the building. "Two studios toast, one on life support; computers, sound cards, phone system and more up in smoke," WSIX PD Keith Kaufman posted on his Facebook. "Just heard the wire-twistin' dude say, 'The plane has crashed.'"

Kaufman later told Country Aircheck, "No Internet, WAN, network, phones and it smells like sh* *. Not sure how Big D & Bubba are going to get their shows out tomorrow or where Gerry and the guys are going to do their show. Our engineering team is great. All five stations are on the air and nobody got hurt. We'll figure out the rest." Cluster VP/MM Tom English adds, "That's what happens when you point a big metal finger at God and play 'I Want To Ride On Your Disco Stick' 9,000 times."

Watch incredible video of the actual lightning strike, shot by Billy Block, below. Scroll to the 1:30 mark.

It's worth mentioning that former KIX104 CE and audio processing magician Mike Gideon is somewhere near the top of the heap in engineering management at CC/Nashville. The "plane has crashed" quote is almost certainly his.