Fox T-Bird/Cougar Forums

My house washiznit tonight by lighting, 3tvs, xbox, wii, two garage door openers, cable boxes, cable modem.  The wind flipped the trampoline into the trees.:mad:

That sucks.  Glad your OK and no house fire.

Maybe time for an insurance claim. I've had similar incidents. Once I was sitting in the office at the shop and the lightning came through the front door and arced from the door, to the stereo, to the wall socket, and to the TV. We had a bunch of issues with the electronics and electrical service to the building. Another time it struck the parking lot and blew a 3 foot wide hole in the asphalt, blew up an electronic swipe card time clock, and fried the ecu in a dodge intrepid. Another time I was at a public pool with my class mates when lightning struck near the pool shocking everyone who was touching the fence around the pool. Luckily no one was hurt in any of these strikes.

Years ago I had lightning go right over my house. I think I was on a ladder installing a ceiling fan at the time. I saw the light , heard two explosions (one outside one inside). It took out both of my TV's, but that was all. Later, when I set up my shortwave radio antenna, I bought a high grade insulator to mount the antenna on the side of my house and buried a long steel rod in the ground. So, my antenna is now my lightning rod (it sticks out above my house).I also bought a heavy duty switch blade (old fashion switch) to disconnect my radio when I'm not using it. With lightning nothing is fail proof, but this way I know I at least tried.

My house got hit last year, took out  42" plasma, 24" LCD, x-box, 1 week old 60"led, 1 week old surround receiver, 2 sub woofers, 2 DVD players, kids scooter charger, they wanted me to call electrician and appliance guy to come out assess the damage then knock $1,000 off what I get. The receiver and 60" were still under warranty so that helped, still got screwed.fixed the 42" for $80 with a new video board.It blew a hole in my hip shingle scary shiznit

Jeez, must be nobody ever heard of a lightning rod.

Nobody has them anymore down here, sounds like a good investment

I don't know about that.  I've been to Disney down there, and everything taller than a person has a lightning rod on it.  They blend in really well, and you wouldn't notice if you weren't looking.

I think businesses have to, haven't seen one on a house in years, pretty stupid if you ask me

It's not always the direct hit that gets ya. Lightning strikes follow power lines, cable lines, telephone lines, etc. In my old days as a mobile computer repair person, I was always replacing charred modems (and sometimes the motherboards too). Lightning came in over the phone line more often than any other way.

When I was an IT Director, I had one old building with an antiquated setup (but it worked well). We had a 24-port serial concentrator that was wired to a bank of 15 serial printers, and some Wyse terminals. Lightning hit the cable modem, blew the modem, blew the ethernet port in the routing server, jumped to the switch (switch was unharmed), jumped to the concentrator, killed it, and killed all 15 printers and Wyse terminals. These were expensive high-output form-fed printers. At least they had replaceable serial boards in them. I bought opto-isolators for all the serial equipment after that, and a lightning supressor for the cable and ethernet ports on the cable router.

Lightning is a beeotch. I remember carrying a bundle of pipes to my van at Home Depot and lightning struck a light pole at the end of the parking lot. Yikes, that makes you think about what could have been, heh.

I've been hit twice by lightning. It ain't no fun.

Lightning rods on houses will help, but won't eliminate the possibility of a strike.

The second time I got hit, was in 1997. I was playing guitar in the basp00get, about 2 hours after a bad T-storm had went through. It was still dark and cloudy, but no prior lightning since the storm. Anyhow, a bolt came down, hit the century old Oak tree, and jumped to the house via the TV antenna. It hosed the tube, microwave, toaster, and vcr, and of course traveled through the house wiring and bit me. I was looking at a chord chart, had my left hand hand muting the strings while I was trying to "grab" the chord...I saw a bright purple flash, felt something that remarkable resembled being hit in the hand by a f*ckin' sledgehammer, then the next thing I know, I was laying on the floor and my legs hurt like hell. The guitar still worked, but the aforementioned electronics were toast, and there was a big-assed hole in the siding from a piece of tree bark that was blown off by the bolt.

Thankfully, the antenna was taken down by me in 203, and there have been no more strikes on the oaks here, despite being on a hill. Before that, they'd get about 4 or 5 hits a year. Brutal shiznit, every time it sounded like a bomb had went off.

The other time I washiznit, I was about 13, 14, and was home alone. This was at my dad's, he was on a run into town, and I was sitting in the chair in the front room, listening to the radio as the storm brewing up was supposed to be pretty bad.

The wind picked up, as did the lightning, and then the rain...I got up to shut the windows on the west and south sides, and as I was a few feet from the chair, I saw a flash of light, and then next thing I knew, my dad was shaking me awake...I'd been knocked clean out. There was water all over the kitchen floor from the rain, and he was pissed at me. I explained that I had been on my way to close the windows when something hit me...sure enough, there was a big lump on the back of my head....and the radio wouldn't work...neither did the TV. The antenna rotor was also fried. We went outside and looked at the roof...the TV antenna was knocked to shiznit....my guess is the strike came in through the TV coax and somehow arced to me or something, knocked me unconscious.

Understandably, I'm a little excited about lightning...I don't want to make it 3 times. That shiznit hurts, guys.

[video=youtube;OGR6Wk3Kboo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGR6Wk3Kboo[/video]

I've lived in ca all my life but I was in the woods in pa about 15 years ago and it was a nasty lightning storm .... Never seen anything like it

It's no joke

No Surge Protectors?

I've always ran them, and they have protected my electronics during many a lightning storm here.

I did lose a 56K modem, and a 12K BTU Window A/C once to a lightning storm, way back in the day.

I got hit once when I was either 18 or 19. I was working at a gas station, it was storming and a friend with a lifted truck came in. Not thinking I grabbed an umbrella that didn't have a handle so I had to hold it by the metal part. I was standing in a puddle of water pumping gas when it hit the tip of the umbrella and bounced off and struck a tree across the road. It made my hair stand up and I had a tinny taste in my mouth. I was lucky.

Struck by lightning while pumping gas!?! And all you got was an afro and a bad taste in your mouth? Yeah, you got lucky as $#@%!

 Funny thing is that everything on the surge protector is what got smoked, they are just a glorified outlet splitter.

My friend that was in the truck asked me if I was okay and couldn't believe it himself. We could've both been killed with that scenario.

Not in my experience their not. They have saved my stuff several times.

Just let the magic smoke outta the SP, everything else was saved, several times in fact :)

Well the insurance company, took care of me, now got to get some better surge protectors, the phone line surge protector did its job, did not have one on the cable lines, going to look at some paramax ones.

There's a difference between a power strip from wal mart and a true surge protector. Why risk a $2,000 TV with a 10 dollar piece of ?

Spend the money...especially if you live in a flat lightning pr0ne area....like my house...or Florida.