Lightning is bad...Mmmkay?

[Dean D.]

Well, there I was, sitting at the computer enjoying another session of Cast Boolits chat when all of a sudden my surge protector emits a very loud pop and then lightning flashed and boomed. :-? :( My DSL modem is now toast and so is my wireless router. Luckily none of my computers or any other electrical device was damaged as far as I can find. [smilie=1:

So, until I can get a DSL modem I am without internet access at home. :-( :killingpc :groner:

But I'll be back!!! :drinks:

Dean D.

[Murphy]

Sorry to hear that Dean,

Bummer man....


Murphy

[357maximum]

I toasted my modem in staff chat about 1.5 mo ago..........I feel your pain. I thought I should get out, but then thought awwww it will be aaaaaaaaaight.......wrong. [smilie=b:


I agree lightning bad...especially when it goes after you personally. When I was a senior in hs I worked graveyard at a aftermarket automotive window factory part time. I get home one night about 0245am, and it is raining like a cow :takinWiz: on a flat rock. About the same time I put the key in the door lighting strikes. It hit the 5 in steel well casing about 15 feet from me. The cuncussion from the strike takes my legs and pushes them south...my body went north. I picked myself off the ground crawling through the mud on my knees I make it to the door....feel for the key in the door and fall into the garage. I was basically blind while doing all of this. It rattled me a bit....but no permanent damage was done:roll:.

We lost every electric device in the house more expensive than a toaster....including the submersible pump 140feet down that pipe.



lightning bad, sorry for your loss.

[Wayne Smith]

I once mentioned to my dad that the odds of winning the jackpot in the lottery was about equal to being struck by lightening twice in one's life. He looked at me a little strange and said, "You do know that I've been struck by lightening twice, don't you?"

[StarMetal]

I went through that when I lived in Ohio. Then I wised up and bought an APC battery back up system and lost nothing ever again to lightening strikes. Here's a list of what I lost in Ohio do to lightening or power surges: countless modems (even with a surge protector) countless battery phones, many phone recorder, my big satellite LMB's, and a receiver. Worse place I lived for lightening strikes and power surges.

Joe

[Rocky Raab]

Wayne, tell your Dad he isn't the only one. I've been hit twice on the ground at at least six times in airplanes.

Some folks say that explains a lot about me. Hmmmm.....

[felix]

Rocky, when was the last time you had your salt level checked? ... felix

[sheepdog]

Ahh Felix is why God created ignore lists. :)

[DanOH]

per wiki:

Lightning provides the intense energy needed to combine atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen into nitrates. The rain then carries these nitrates down to the earth's surface enriching the soil. Acting as a fertilizer, nitrates in an indirect way helps make the grass green

[Rocky Raab]

Just my magnetic personality, Felix, LOL!

Darn near got it again in October. Was golfing and was in the middle of my backswing on a par-3 when a bolt hit about a hundred yards away. The other three guys were astounded that I made the swing and got the ball on the green. I joked that I was just used to lightning, but it was bravado. We got to the clubhouse as fast as the carts would go - didn't even bother to putt out.

In a plane, though, it's harmless 99.999% of the time. A pinkie-nail-sized black hole or two is all you get. Goes in one place and out another.

[DLCTEX]

5 or 6 years ago I was watching TV one night when lightening srtuck the guy wire to our antenna tower(50 ft.). It cut the wire and let the tower fall into a tree, the TV picture never changed. The wire was touching the water heater vent and lighting perforated the flex line for the propane. My wife shouted the house is on fire, so I ran into the bathroom and slapped the flames with a towel while she got pliers to turn the gas off. The flex line had six holes. It also got our phones , answering machines and all electrical things on one circuit. If we hadn't been home the house would have gone up quick.

[lurch]

Had a three different houses get hit - once each. I've seen trim work blown off a dormer, outlet covers scattered about the room in numerous pieces, lots of fried electrical stuff including a none too cheap central heat/air zone controller, heat pump compressor, computer, stereo, phones, modems and such. Respect that stuff. It'll bite and when it does, it's usually serious about it.

[ronterry]

Wow guys!!! Never been hit, and I'm knocking on NO wood!

I know surge suppression is no absolute, but I keep every thing on them. Have one of those huge protector rack units on my entertainment center. Curious if they honor there warranty from damage. Monster supposedly offers 500K insurance?

Ten years at my current home, and we have got pretty close but no hit! It helps NOT being the highest object in the area and every one is on two acres :) I even had a HUGE deep fringe UHF antenna (Got 80 Miles with that sucker!!!) for local HD channels a few years ago and still didn't get hit, however I did have the setup grounded with an 8' copper rod, and 6ga copper wire. I don't wait to get hit to take some counter measures!!!!!!

[archmaker]

Sitting at home surfing the web with my laptop in my lap. Lightning hit the electric pole about 50 ft from the house. i felt the spark in my leg and then the boom and the lights went out.

No damage to the laptop but the TV and my receiver were fried.

Woke in the morning and my electric wire was about a foot from the ground, blew the top out of the pole, according tot he power company guy who did the repair.

Third time in 10 years I have been hit. (House sits on top of an Iron ore hill covered with sand, did not know that until after the house was on the land).

[fishhawk]

i just have to say this whole thread is just....SHOCKING!!!!! ...sorry couldn't help myself...steve k

[Tom Myers]

When I was growing up on our Nebraska Sandhills ranch, we were located 31 miles from town, down into the hills. We had no Rural Electricity at the time but all the neighboring ranch owners formed a coop to bring in a party line telephone system. Our phones were the hand cranked type with the tilting mouthpiece protruding from the front of the wooden box housing the hand cranked generator which produced the ring tone. Each party had a certain ring pattern that identified who was to answer the phone. I remember ours was two longs and two shorts.

During a thunderstorm Dad would throw huge knife switch mounted on the outside of the house to break the line coming into the crank phone.

If that switch was closed during a storm, there were many miles of line to attract a lightning strike which would then be carried into the phone box and shoot a bolt of fire out of the mouthpiece.

On occasion, those discharges would take on strange forms such as branches of flame dancing from the mouthpiece or sometimes balls of blue flame that would float around near the floor and then dissipate with a loud bang.

On time Dad forgot to throw the switch and a large strike travled down the line into the phone box and out the mouthpiece in the form of an intense blue flame that extended 24 feet to the far side of the house, igniting the curtains on the west window. I remember Dad wearing bandages on his hands for quite some time to help heal the burns acquired when he beat out the flames on the burning curtains with his hands.

Those were the "Good old days", right?

Tom Myers