An airport lightning strike forced the airport to shut down temporarily on Thursday afternoon. Flights later resumed at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

According to NBC, an FAA employee was flipping the switch to an engine generator at BWI  is a precaution due to the severe weather at around 2:30 p.m. However the generator was hit by lightning, which shocked the worker. He was transported to a nearby shock trauma center. His condition is not known.

As a result of the strike, BWI officials shut down the airport traffic control tower. All flights were suspended to and from the airport. Flights that were scheduled to land at BWI were forced to divert to Dulles International and other area airports. By 7:30p.m., 118 flights had been cancelled due to the lightning strike and thousands of passengers were left stranded and waiting for many hours.

Steve Sarkady of Atlanta had boarded a flight that was supposed to take off at 12:50 p.m but was running late.

"We heard a couple loud booms around the airport," said Sarkady. "It actually felt like it hit the plane."

"We didn't have any idea why it happened," Jonathan Dean, a spokesman for BWI, told the Baltimore Sun. "Usually [the towers] are pretty safe during these storms.

The major strike wasn't the only one that hit the airport. According to Baltimore-area meteorologist Justin Berk, there were five strikes that hit the BWI airfield on Thursday.

The airport started to reopen by 5 p.m., but two runways remained closed. and FAA officials said that BWI's air traffic control tower remains closed. To make up for this. A consolidated radar facility has taken over control of air traffic.

BWI wasn't the only airport impacted by the poor weather on Thursday. There were several delays at many major  airports along the East Coast.