Lightning strike ignites fire on chapel roof at HBCU near Charlotte
A lightning strike sparked a fire that damaged a chapel at Barber-Scotia College, one of the Charlotte area’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities, on Thursday, a Concord spokesman confirmed.
Kittie Sanson Chapel was unoccupied at the time of the fire, the City of Concord said in a news release.
Concord firefighters found smoke showing from the chapel when they arrived at at 145 Cabarrus Ave. West around 4:40 p.m. Firefighters brought it under control within 28 minutes, the news release said.
The 155-year-old school started in 1867, when the Freedman’s Committee of the Presbyterian Church built Scotia Seminary, the Observer previously reported. It was the first higher education institution built for African American women after the Civil War.
In the 1940s, it evolved into Barber-Scotia Junior College, a four-year women’s college. The college became coeducational in 1954.
Strong storms barreled through the Charlotte area late Thursday afternoon, knocking down trees and power lines. More than 40,000 Duke Energy customers across the region lost power — many in the Concord-Kannapolis area.
By noon Friday, only about 3,000 customers were still without power, mainly in southeast Charlotte, according to Duke Energy’s outage map.
This story was originally published June 17, 2022 at 11:55 AM.
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