After seeing this thread, I decided to ask my old friend Harry Rimmer about his memories of the Barrage Balloons in Liverpool. Harry was born in 1927 and was once leader of our city. He's 82 now and still has has all his faculties.
Here's my interpretation of his tale.

The Barrage Balloons were positioned in one large circle around Liverpool, then, within this large circle, they created smaller circles of Barrage Balloons.
In about 1940, he remembers all the balloons going up and next thing you know, there were German planes flying high above, dropping their cargo of bombs. Then the Thunder Storm arrived ......
Harry thinks the Barrage Balloons went as high as 8 to 10,000 feet, held by a heavy steel wire/ cable.
The WAF's looked after the raising and descending Balloons, on a few occassions, they got injured, trying to anchor the Balloon.
Harry can't remember any of the Balloons, bring a plane down.

Thunder and Lightening was all around and one was hit !
It was anchored behind the Royal Oak on Upper Warwick St and Park Place.
There was a bit of flat land ( bomb site ) and this is the one that got hit and destroyed by the lightening.
It burst into flames and the worst part was, the heavy cable, dropping from so high up in the air

He thinks it reached as far as Sefton park !
One of the problems, whenever this happens was, when the cable was falling, obviously if it hit anyone, they would probably be dead AND it would obviously, fall across the electrified tram wires !
So for a couple of seconds, before it was earthed, it would be live !



On this occassion, the RAF were out in force and were cutting the cable up, into managable parts, to take away.

I hope I've done Harry's tale justice here

Harry is still, in mind, like he was when in his teens and remembers all sorts, from our history, in Liverpool. If you ever get the chance to talk to him, take it all in. One great man.