Twin Counties emergency service personnel had their hands full Sunday as a large volume of calls poured into dispatch about incidents including fires, downed utility poles and large streams of run-off water on roadways.

In one of the most intense storms to sweep across the area recently, prevailing lightning strikes wreaked havoc for fire departments.

At Greater St. Delight Baptist Church at 17185 Red Bud Road, crews worked to save the church sanctuary after lightning struck the church steeple.

According to Nash County Assistant Fire Marshal Scott Rogers, lighting struck the steeple at 6:11 p.m.

“It’s not uncommon,” Rogers said. “The steeple had some smoke coming out of it, but (firefighters) got it under control pretty quick.”

More than 30 firefighters from the Castalia and Red Oak volunteer fire departments as well as Nashville Fire Department responded and worked to keep the smoke coming from the steeple under control.

“Nobody was injured,” Rogers said.

Sunday’s storms and heavy rains didn’t help matters.

The rain acts to impede firefighters traveling from call to call instead of helping extinguish fires, he said.

Rogers said several calls about structure fires due to lightning came in during the storm as well as calls about downed trees and alarm activations.

“We’ve had some lightning storms this bad in the past, but this was the worst thunderstorm we’ve seen in quite a while,” Rogers said.

Castalia Volunteer Fire Department Chief Robert Varnell said any smoke was contained to the steeple that was separated from the church by the church ceiling.

“We received several other calls at that time, including one of a possible tornado which turned out to be high winds that overturned a metal structure, and another structure fire in Franklin County,” Varnell said.

In addition to structure fires, surface runoff created problems for drivers on U.S. 301 and stranded customers in business parking lots.