A small building at the South Road Cemetery in Belmont was severely damaged after it apparently was struck by lightning during a storm over the weekend.

The damaged building was found on Sunday when ground crews were mowing the lawn and found pieces of the building scattered across the grounds surrounding the foundation. Concrete, lattice and wood chunks with nails sticking through lay more than 100 feet away from the building around the wooded area and among the tombstones.

Before mowing the lawn, landscaper Tim Hayes had to remove several pieces of concrete that had projected into the grassy area around the burial site.

"When I first saw the damage, I thought that someone had backed into the building," said Hayes. "But then I saw that all four corners were torn."

Hayes was at the cemetery on Saturday mowing the lawn until noon when it started to rain. He returned on Sunday morning after church to finish up the mowing when he noticed the damage on the building.

"My first impression was that it got hit by something," Hayes said.

Impressions in the ground were found right in front of the office building where the lightning finally came out, which at first made Hayes think it was vehicle, but looking closer at the ground, he noticed it was certainly not a vehicle. The impressions were similar in shape to that of a bolt of lightning with its "legs" branching out.

"I'm glad no one was around here when it happened," Hayes said. "It might have killed someone."

The corners of the building were on top of solid concrete, which was broken apart by the lightning bolt. The president of the South Road Cemetery Association, which oversees the graveyard, was unsure of the total extent of the damage.

"We'll need to get an electrician to inspect the electrical system before any repair work is done," Lemay said.

Lemay has contacted the insurance company. He had no idea how much it would cost to repair the damage. Lemay said it cost around $2,000 to put in the electrical system eight years ago.

"A lot of work will need to be done to the building," said Lemay. "We're not sure if there is any more damage. We won't know until we get the electrician since there may be things we can't see."

Apparently the lightning struck a transformer on the other side of cemetery on South Road, which sent the surge through the wire to the pump house where the well pump is located, which caused the pump cover to blow off and all the breakers in the breaker box to trip.

A wire from the pump house runs underground along the south side of the property about two feet below the surface which connects to a storage garage at the far end of the cemetery to a break box and finally connects to the small office building adjacent to the garage.

The extend of the damage in the garage is not certain since there are no outlets in the building, but there is a panel box that had a wire blown off.

"Belmont Fire Department issued an order that we don't use any electricity until we have an electrical inspection," Lemay said.

Parts of the outlet were found on the floor of the building melted together and sheetrock had been blown out, sending thousands of pieces everywhere inside the office.

The New Hampshire Electric Cooperative was on the scene Sunday to disconnect the wires from the buildings. When Co-op workers arrived, the power meter was not running.

Officer Chris Gustafson of the Belmont Police Department was the first responder to the scene. "Initially I thought someone had backed into the building, so when I saw that first corner, I thought someone was damaging cemetery property," said Gustafson. "As I was looking around, I noticed that the debris field was really big and every corner was damaged."

Gustafson said there was no evidence of a vehicle backing into the building or any signs of a chains to move it.

"After I saw the weird prints in the ground, it just came that it was lightning," Gustafson said.

He called in to dispatch to have someone from the Belmont Fire Department stop by the scene. It was determined it was a lightning strike that caused the damage.

Gustafson asked fire personnel why the house didn't ignite, the reason being that the lightning found some place to escape before it could burn the building.