A Louisiana woman is crediting divine intervention for saving her after a lightning strike missed her by inches. Morgan City resident Sarah Ribardi says she walked out on her front porch during a thunderstorm over the weekend when a bolt of lightning shot down, striking a tree right next to her. The blast sent chunks of wood and debris flying everywhere as the frightened woman ran back inside. "God was definitely with us," Ribardi says. "One step closer and I would have been seriously injured." The strike was so powerful that several nearby homes and vehicles were damaged in the incident, police say. According to the National Severe Storms Laboratory, a lightning strike heats the air around it to anywhere between 18,000 degrees to 60,000 degrees. When it strikes a tree, the "rapidly expanding steam can blast pieces of bark from the tree," the agency says.