PARIS - A family of four was burned out of their apartment Thursday afternoon when lightning struck the chimney, spraying bricks across the yard. The bricks barely missed two young children.

The lightning strike at 2 Hill St. was one of several during three hours of thunderstorms that rolled through the Norway-Paris area bringing quarter-size hail and strong winds and knocking out power to downtown Norway for hours.

"I just came home from work and I saw lightning hit the chimney," said Hyeran Loring as she carried bags of clothing from her burned-out apartment. Firefighters worked to dislodge loose bricks from the three-apartment building near the downtown.

Loring said she and her children, Christopher Loring Jr., 7, and Alyah, 6, had just gotten out of their car when the bricks toppled to the ground, barely missing the children.

When they went into their apartment, Loring smelled smoke; they called 911 and ran out as fire erupted.

The apartment is a wooden addition to the original brick building that is known as the Cornwall building. Brian Phinney, whose father owns the apartment complex, was inside the building doing maintenance.

"I heard a crack when it blew the chimney," Phinney said.

One apartment in the brick portion of the complex is vacant and the second is occupied by Jason Bilodeau, Phinney said. Bilodeau said his apartment was not damaged, but he will not be able to occupy it until the electricity and furnace are restored.

Christopher Loring, who is on active duty in the U.S. Army Reserve with the 619th Transportation Company in Auburn, said he rushed home to find his family safe but the living room and kitchen of his home destroyed by fire. The children's rooms were saved by firefighters who had to work under heavy rain and hail.

Loring said he had no renter's insurance but would be able to stay with his godfather, Ron Kilgore, in Paris until he finds new housing.

Lightning also struck a transformer on Pleasant Street in Norway and sent wires to the ground. Although the damage was close to downtown, firefighters said that did not cause the outage that blacked out the business district and the wider area. The streetlights near Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School on Route 26 were also out and streets were flooded above car wheels in some areas.

The storms, which seemed to roll in one after another, also collapsed a tent in the farmers' market in the municipal parking lot behind the Fare Share building in Norway.

Also in Norway, lightning struck the cat shelter on Route 118 at about 2 p.m., destroying the phone system.