WRAL.com56%

Lightning topples tree, igniting natural gas line near Harnett County home 6%

By WRAL staff11%

7/21/2026, 12:17:15 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 10 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Unattributed Quote, and Negativity Bias, with Post Hoc (False Cause) as the most egregious example at 24.5% saturation with 35 hits. Analysis detected 199 faulty-reasoning hits from 143 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 21.9% and a BS Rank of 6% (20,655 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 94.40% of the article peer group.

No one was hurt after lightning hit a tree and led to a natural gas line igniting outside a Harnett County home. 
The lightning struck just before midnight in the front yard of a home in Buies Creek on Keith Hills Road. 
The downed tree damaged and ignited a natural gas line, Piedmont Natural Gas said. 
The home was evacuated while crews began working on the line. 
The crew dug underground and stopped the gas flow to extinguish the line. 
The company said no one was hurt and no other damage was done. 
"Since the damage was to the 
service line running to the customer’s home, there were no other customer 
outages. 
Piedmont will be back at the home today to replace the damaged service 
line," a Piedmont Natural Gas representative said. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 9.1%WRAL staff: 1.3%WRAL: 3.4%Confirmation Bias9.1%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.7%WRAL: 0.9%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 1.9%WRAL: 3.0%Availability Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.8%WRAL: 0.7%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.2%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 1.5%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 3.2%WRAL: 7.5%Framing Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.2%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.4%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 9.1%WRAL staff: 2.1%WRAL: 1.6%Optimism Bias9.1%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.6%WRAL: 2.0%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 15.4%WRAL staff: 2.5%WRAL: 7.7%Negativity Bias15.4%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 2.9%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.8%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 9.8%WRAL staff: 0.5%WRAL: 0.2%Actor-Observer Bias9.8%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 1.2%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.3%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 6.1%WRAL: 1.1%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.2%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.4%WRAL: 1.4%Recency Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.2%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.6%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.1%Straw Man0.0%This article: 23.8%WRAL staff: 8.4%WRAL: 2.5%Appeal to Authority23.8%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 1.5%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 1.3%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 2.3%WRAL: 3.1%Hasty Generalization0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.4%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.2%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 2.8%WRAL: 6.8%Appeal to Emotion0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.7%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 24.5%WRAL staff: 1.4%WRAL: 2.6%Post Hoc (False Cause)24.5%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.5%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.1%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 1.7%WRAL: 1.7%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.0%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 8.4%WRAL staff: 0.5%WRAL: 1.1%Ambiguity (Equivocation)8.4%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.2%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.3%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.3%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 18.9%WRAL staff: 4.1%WRAL: 1.7%Unattributed Quote18.9%This article: 4.9%WRAL staff: 1.3%WRAL: 0.7%Quote-first Misdirection4.9%This article: 15.4%WRAL staff: 3.5%WRAL: 3.4%Biased Writer Voice15.4%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 2.4%WRAL: 1.2%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 1.8%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 0.0%WRAL: 0.9%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%WRAL staff: 1.5%WRAL: 0.1%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

143 words analyzed.

Speakers

1speaker37%attributed speech90writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 11 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 20 words • 0.0% coveragePiedmont Natural Gas • 14 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 11 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 100.0% coveragePiedmont Natural Gas • 6 words • 0.0% coveragePiedmont Natural Gas • 12 words • 0.0% coveragePiedmont Natural Gas • 1 words • 0.0% coveragePiedmont Natural Gas • 13 words • 0.0% coveragePiedmont Natural Gas • 7 words • 100.0% coverage
Selected voice

Piedmont Natural Gas

87%flagged-word coverage
53 attributed words100% of attributed speech53% writer coverage
0%15.0%30.0%Unattributed Quote+12.0 ptsWriter: 14.4%Piedmont Natural Gas: 26.4%26.4%Biased Writer Voice-24.4 ptsWriter: 24.4%Piedmont Natural Gas: 0.0%0.0%Quote-first Misdirection+13.2 ptsWriter: 0.0%Piedmont Natural Gas: 13.2%13.2%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

Loading…
Loading…
Loading…

Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.