Lightning Strike - Off Topic

Hello Guys/gals -

Occasionally I see a post in here that's way off topic so I hope the group
doesn't mind this one, but we're in the middle of something I'm not sure's
possible even as I sit here waiting for the Com Ed crew. Wanted to see if
anyone here had any experience or thoughts.

Yesterday morning at 6:30 a.m. I was standing downstairs in the kitchen not
far from our sliding glass door during a particularly violent thunderstorm.
Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of lightning and what I
can only describe as an explosion that rocked the home and threw what looked
like welders sparks all over our back deck. It literally shook the house and
that's exactly what I thought happened.

Here's the extreemly wierd aftermath. Every tv cable box in the house was
frozen. If it wasn't on we couldn't turn it on. The two that were were
frozen on the televisons (pictures were frozen sound was going on). The
storm came so fast we didnt know it was in the area. Eventually we unplugged
all of them and all came back to normal except the one in our bedroom which
is dead. Then the speakers on my computer were found to be dead. Not the
computer nor anything else plugged into the same power surge protecter, just
the speakers. Then . . . our garage door opener is fried or seems to be dead
but all other items in garage (llike freezer) are fine. Our door bell is
fried, but lights to front porch are ok. Our furnace will not turn on, but
washer, dryer and all else are fine. Judy has a dictation machine on her
desk that my daughter was going to use to transcribe some of my work. The
damn thing turned on by itself, ejected a tape and would not turn off. We
had to unplug it. It's plugged into the same surge protector Judy's computer
is on. Nothing else was damaged there either ! ! !

I walked around outside and cannot see any evidence that the lightning hit
the house or even the ground. I thought if it did it would at least leave a
burn mark. Very puzzled right now and maybe looking at some pretty stiff
bills (hoping insurance will cover). Anyone ever heard of such a thing.?
Have any thoughts? Thanks for reading.

p.s. my bass boat is ok and was charging as soon as we through the one and
only circuit breaker that was blown. (there maybe that covers the ot
postg)

God Bless America

Josh The Bad Bear

Josh,
Lightning doesn't have to hit your building to wipe everything out.
Last year they put a cell tower a few hundred yards from our business.
Since then we have had tens of thousands of dollars worth of lightning
damage from nearby strikes but no direct hits or even near direct hits.

By the way, surge protectors will not stop this kind of damage since it
is just too much energy. Proper grounding of electrical devices can
help.
Glad nobody was hurt and your boat survived.

Shane

Shane,
thanks. . . thought i was going nuts. !

--
God Bless America

Josh The Bad Bear

I heard that Senkos have a weird way of conducting electricity. Please have
all senkos sent to me for safe storage


"Joshuall" wrote in message
...
Shane,
thanks. . . thought i was going nuts. !

--
God Bless America

Josh The Bad Bear

There is an obscure grounding system called "the triangle". First saw it a
couple of weeks ago in Georgia. They use three ground rods spaced in a
triangle. The gound lead from the building is welded to the first, and then
welded to the others to form what looks like a lasso. It has proven to be so
effective that all Georgia commercial & residential buildings are required
to use them now.Might want to check it out!

--
David Norton

"alwaysfishking" wrote in message
...
I heard that Senkos have a weird way of conducting electricity. Please have
all senkos sent to me for safe storage


"Joshuall" wrote in message
...
Shane,
thanks. . . thought i was going nuts. !

--
God Bless America

Josh The Bad Bear

I thought you had all of the Senko's that were manufactured.


"alwaysfishking" wrote in message
...
I heard that Senkos have a weird way of conducting electricity. Please
have
all senkos sent to me for safe storage


"Joshuall" wrote in message
...
Shane,
thanks. . . thought i was going nuts. !

--
God Bless America

Josh The Bad Bear

"Jerry Barton (NervisRek)" wrote in message ...
I thought you had all of the Senko's that were manufactured.

You can never have enough, I just got another color wacko called summer
craw, very nice color. I'll see how they do in the morning

First, most lightning strikes never leave an indication.
Lightning is a high power but rarely a typically high energy
event. Well over 90% of trees struck during a US Forestry
study showed any indication of that direct lightning strike.

Second, to be damaged, the appliance must have both an
incoming and outgoing electrical path. It is electricity.
Some forget this. For example, they think lightning comes in
on phone line, damages a modem, then stops. Electricity does
not work that way. To have damage, first lightning passes
through everything in a path. Only later is something, still
in that path, damaged. To appreciate why some things are
damaged and others are not, one must first learn the complete
electrical path.

It is an electrical path from cloud to earth, then through
earth to charges maybe located miles distant. An appliance is
damaged when it becomes path of an electrical circuit from
cloud to distant earthborne charges.

Third, a figure from the NIST demonstrates how lightning can
damage electronics:
http://www.epri-peac.com/tutorials/sol01tut.html

In this case, the problem is created by utility wires
entering from the different directions. Same problem can be
created when utility wires are not earthed to a common earth
ground. IOW take those incoming AC electric and phone lines
in that figure. Separate the phone line ground from AC
electric ground. Now lightning strikes a nearby tree (or cell
phone tower) on right side. Electricity travels right to left
in that figure. It rises up on phone line ground, passes
destructively through the fax machine, then drops back to
earth on AC electric ground. This is but another reason why
buildings must have a single point ground.

Fourth, sometimes the lightning strike you saw was also
forking to strike other nearby wires. These wires even out in
the street are like antenna connections directly into every
(non-radio) appliance. This is but another possible incoming
path. What would be the outgoing path to earth ground?
Lightning damages appliances because that appliance is in a
good electrical path to earth.

We never stop that electricity. We earth it before that
destructive transient can find a path inside the building. A
concept that Ben Franklin demonstrates in 1752. Give
lightning a better path to earth and it will not take a
destructive path through a church steeple (or your cable box).

Nothing facetious in your damage. Some things were damaged
because lightning found a complete electrical path through
that appliance. Fields from the nearby strike did not cause
those problems.

Unfortunately, you now know what appliances were connected
to improperly earthed incoming utility wires. How are they
earthed? Earthing is how future damage can be eliminated.
Effective protection costs far less that plug-in surge
protectors.

Joshuall wrote:
Shane,
thanks. . . thought i was going nuts. !

--
God Bless America

Josh The Bad Bear

There is so much energy in a lighting bolt, that it creates it's own
ionization path to ground. Reason that a banker sitting inside the bank in
a chair, and the lighting hit the drive through teller machine, arced to the
wall and came out the 115V ac outlet, jumping to the banker and screwing him
up for life. You put a couple of hundred thousand volts and even minimal
amperage and you have lots of energy. 100,000 volts and 0.5 amps of current
and you have 50,000 Watts of energy. As to needing a ground, there are
reports of "ball Lighting" coming through the nose of an airliner and
rolling down the aisle. Same ball lighting will roll along electric fences.
Growing up in California, we did not see much lighting, but I remember the
first TV antenna I saw that had been hit by lighting. Top of a motel, and
there was a 3'x3' hole blown in the roof. Big energy.
Bill

"w_tom" wrote in message
...
First, most lightning strikes never leave an indication.
Lightning is a high power but rarely a typically high energy
event. Well over 90% of trees struck during a US Forestry
study showed any indication of that direct lightning strike.

Second, to be damaged, the appliance must have both an
incoming and outgoing electrical path. It is electricity.
Some forget this. For example, they think lightning comes in
on phone line, damages a modem, then stops. Electricity does
not work that way. To have damage, first lightning passes
through everything in a path. Only later is something, still
in that path, damaged. To appreciate why some things are
damaged and others are not, one must first learn the complete
electrical path.

It is an electrical path from cloud to earth, then through
earth to charges maybe located miles distant. An appliance is
damaged when it becomes path of an electrical circuit from
cloud to distant earthborne charges.

Third, a figure from the NIST demonstrates how lightning can
damage electronics:
http://www.epri-peac.com/tutorials/sol01tut.html

In this case, the problem is created by utility wires
entering from the different directions. Same problem can be
created when utility wires are not earthed to a common earth
ground. IOW take those incoming AC electric and phone lines
in that figure. Separate the phone line ground from AC
electric ground. Now lightning strikes a nearby tree (or cell
phone tower) on right side. Electricity travels right to left
in that figure. It rises up on phone line ground, passes
destructively through the fax machine, then drops back to
earth on AC electric ground. This is but another reason why
buildings must have a single point ground.

Fourth, sometimes the lightning strike you saw was also
forking to strike other nearby wires. These wires even out in
the street are like antenna connections directly into every
(non-radio) appliance. This is but another possible incoming
path. What would be the outgoing path to earth ground?
Lightning damages appliances because that appliance is in a
good electrical path to earth.

We never stop that electricity. We earth it before that
destructive transient can find a path inside the building. A
concept that Ben Franklin demonstrates in 1752. Give
lightning a better path to earth and it will not take a
destructive path through a church steeple (or your cable box).

Nothing facetious in your damage. Some things were damaged
because lightning found a complete electrical path through
that appliance. Fields from the nearby strike did not cause
those problems.

Unfortunately, you now know what appliances were connected
to improperly earthed incoming utility wires. How are they
earthed? Earthing is how future damage can be eliminated.
Effective protection costs far less that plug-in surge
protectors.

Joshuall wrote:
Shane,
thanks. . . thought i was going nuts. !

--
God Bless America

Josh The Bad Bear

You are confusing power (watts) with energy (joules).

A human cannot push a nail into wood. A backhoe can force
that nail into a block of wood. Clearly big energy must be
required. Why does a simple 20 oz hammer, driven by nothing
more than a human arm, do same in one hit? Does the human
arm suddenly output high energy? Of course not. Again, don't
confuse power with energy. Lightning is a high power event,
but does not have the high energy that so many assume. This
confusion between power and energy is another source of so
many myths about lightning.

Using your own numbers, that 50,000 watts would be only 2
joules. Not even enough energy to light a 7 watt Christmas
tree light for one second. So where is the high energy?

Again, well over 90% of trees known to be struck by
lightning left no appreciable indication. Why? Most direct
lightning strikes are not high energy. Don't confuse this
statement with energy elsewhere in the event.

Energy content is not relevant to the OP's event. Lightning
found destructive paths to earth ground because the human
still has not installed (earthed) effective protection.
(Plug-in protectors also are not effective protection.) He
has damaged appliances. That means lightning electricity was
permitted inside the house to find circuits both into and out
of those appliances that were damaged. We still don't build
new homes as if the transistor exists. Therefore the
homeowner is often stuck fixing the problem - and often
without honest or accurate information.

Up front is the fundamental fact. Earthing is the
protection. Lightning seeks earth ground either via
destructive paths inside the house OR via safer paths
(provided by humans) that don't enter the structure.
Protection is only as effective as the earth ground.

Bill McKee wrote:
There is so much energy in a lighting bolt, that it creates it's own
ionization path to ground. Reason that a banker sitting inside the
bank in a chair, and the lighting hit the drive through teller
machine, arced to the wall and came out the 115V ac outlet, jumping
to the banker and screwing him up for life. You put a couple of
hundred thousand volts and even minimal amperage and you have lots
of energy. 100,000 volts and 0.5 amps of current and you have
50,000 Watts of energy. As to needing a ground, there are
reports of "ball Lighting" coming through the nose of an airliner
and rolling down the aisle. Same ball lighting will roll along
electric fences. Growing up in California, we did not see much
lighting, but I remember the first TV antenna I saw that had been
hit by lighting. Top of a motel, and there was a 3'x3' hole blown
in the roof. Big energy.
Bill