A United States serviceman who helped rescue 27 people in the English coastal town of Hunstanton, engulfed by the storm surge, recounts his efforts. Three brothers who survived the storm on England's Canvey Island talk about the loss of three younger brothers. On islands off the Dutch coast, where the same storm caused the highest tide in recorded history, memories of shattered dykes, submerged villages, and lost lives are equally disturbing. This program delves deep into the secrets of the Earth's atmosphere and beyond to discover the strange and deadly powers that reside there. Killer bolts of lightning seem to appear out of the blue.
Hail comes just as suddenly, destroying crops and homes in a violent clatter.
Rocks from space reshape the landscape and sometimes change the course of history. In Surrey Hills, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, no one will ever forget the 1999 supercell thunderstorm that caused giant hailstones to come plummeting out of the sky. The storm generated so much electrical energy it could have powered the city for a day. Also in Australia, the program meets up with a woman who was struck by lightning in 1993. Two glider pilots tell of their own bout with a lightning bolt, which literally blew them out of the sky.