Normally seeing lightening damage like this I would start to suspect bad tower grounding. However, after checking the tower, building and base grounding, that just wasn't the case. I've never seen damage this bad, so the tower must have taken several extreme hits.
One of several casualties, a totally fried 3cx10000A7 tube.
The PA tube was quite literally welded to the PA socket. We had to pry the tube loose. All the button caps, inner ring and the entire plate blocker were damaged due to the strike.
Another look at some of the damage. The blocker caps were completely destroyed.
Everything rebuilt and just waiting on a new tube.
There was nothing more an owner could have done to prevent this sort of damage. I wish I had a picture of how well grounded the tower and building were. One of the best jobs I'd seen.
Mother Nature is not your friend when you have a 900 foot stick on a mountain of rock.