I had my first very close call about 4 am this morning. I was jolted out of bed by a loud flash and bang. The lightning apparently struck right outside my window. It was so deafening and loud. I thought it struck my roof. I was worried about my house being on fire. The storms last evening were producing quite a lot of lightning. At the time it happened, everything in my house seemed to kind of flash. It was really very weird. Anyway, I eventually went back to sleep thinking no more of it and upon realizing there was no fire. Turns out I guess there was damage. My phone is not working and my hub apparently was zapped and broke. My other appliances appear to work fine, though. I'm guessing a surge or spike messed up my phone line and hub. I guess I was lucky. My old rent house has zero ground. There is no grounding on any of the outlets or a grounding rod...nothing. Everything is two prong bs. I've been through many severe storms and never had a problem. That strike was very close, though. I believe it hit right outside my bedroom window. I am thankful it did not come through my roof and hit me. Anyone else have any lightning strike experiences to share? Surf
We had lightning strike the neighbors house. It actually hit the gutters, then arced over to our house... it was loud. The neighbors end pieces of the gutter were in our yard, we had some tree branches that were singed and a small edge piece of roof was torn off. Fortunately I had unplugged all my computer stuff, but left the DIRECTV receivers plugged in. They got fried, everything else was fine. Since then I have surge protectors for the tv's and back ups with surge protect on my pc's. Scary shiznit... Surf, our house has some old 2 prong wiring as well, although my computer room is grounded. I've got 3 circuits in my office each dedicated with ground. I have 10 outlet plugs in my office!!
oh and when it happened, our phones crapped out as well!! I was without phone/dsl service for 3 days!! Talk about withdrawal!
We had once had lightning strike a tree in our driveway. The car in the drive way had part of the side rearview mirror melt. It was a long time ago so I don't remember about the phone lines, but that was really strange looking at that mirror.
My hub is definitely fried. I diagnosed the phone problem as one of those wireless phone jacks my direcTV is plugged into. Hmm...I wonder if I have to keep that bedroom direcTV receiver plugged in or not? My main living room direcTV receiver is still able to dial out on it's wireless phone jack. I also had a telephone coupler which my old 56k modem and living room phone was hooked up to go out. It was strange diagnosing the wireless jack/phone problem. What was happening was when I tried to plug-in my bedroom wireless phone jack...the direcTV receiver was apparently trying to call out through it so what it would get is a phone message, "We're sorry...we're unable to complete your call..." and then nothing...a down signal. If I hook up another phone straight to the source jack the fried wireless jack was plugged into, then it works no problem. Conclusion: Fried wireless phone jack, fried hub, and fried phone coupler....w/ gravy . Pretty weird what was damaged and what wasn't. Thank God my TVs didn't blow out along with my PC and direcTV receivers. No Rockets and no Rockets chat. Although, I could have bought all new equipment with my insurance policy coverage. Hmm...then my rates might go up....hehe. Still, all new TVs and equipment versus a rate hike. Hmm.... Good stories on your end as well. I know it's been a lot worse for some of you others. Surf
we have some very close friends whose house was struck by lightning...TWICE!!! when the insurance adjustor came the second time he said, "i don't wanna weird you guys out...but have you considered having a priest perform an exorcism here?"
Many, many years ago (before the age of cable and dishes), we had our antenna for the TV hit by lightning. Not only did it fry our TV, but the strike went thru a large pecan tree in our back yard that a source of many pecan pies. There was obvious damage to several branches, and the tree died out a year or so later. But the really scary one was when I mowed lawns in my early teens. I was at a neighbor's house, trying to get the lawn finished before it started to rain. I was in the back yard when a bolt of lightning hit a tree in the front yard. Damn, that is some loud ****. The tree blew apart and chunks of it rained down on me and all over the yard. Needless to say, that yard was done for the day.
About 5 years ago I went riding with a cop friend of mine looking for DWI's. Around 2:30 a.m. a front came through and due to bad weather we decided to quit early. On my way home a bolt of lightning struck something next to my car. It had to be within a couple of feet. I felt the heat from the strike and I had a mark on the side of my face that looked similar to a light sunburn. It was very wierd and kinda freaked me out. I was so shaken up i don't even remember driving the rest of the way home or how I did not have a wreck. CK
