- Lightning Strike - 10 Updates
| "Peter W." <peterwieck33@gmail.com>: Sep 30 11:43AM -0700 A week ago, today (Thursday), our house was struck directly by lightning right about noontime. interesting that the lights did not even blink, however, there were consequences: a) We lost our cable-modem and all three TV boxes. b) We lost two older televisions - both protected by surge-protectors, but we expect that the damage was via the cable input, not the electrical input. c) We lost four (4) local GFI receptacles - popped, but would not reset. d) We lost all our Panasonic wireless phones - base and satellites. e) We lost the (Dell) computer power-supply brick - on a surge-protected UPS, go figure. But not the computer, or the printer. Our Utility (PECO) visited the following day, and spent nearly an hour at our house, checking the pole-pig, and remaking the bugs between the pig and the house for us and for our nearest neighbors. They also checked and verified the grounds three houses in both directions. Our electrician spent two hours checking the box and load-testing, as well as replacing the damaged GFI devices. He found (and replaced) one additional receptacle with a bad ground. Directly related? - unknown. Comcast replaced our modem and all our TV boxes the following morning, and Amazon supplied us with two new 'smart' televisions and phones for very nearly pocket-change, also by the following day. All-in, the "spend" was well under US$1,000, considerably less than our insurance deductible. And no damage to the house at all. As it was built in 1890, I suspect that it has survived far worse. Stuff happens. Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA |
| Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au>: Oct 01 07:28AM +1000 On 1/10/2021 4:43 am, Peter W. wrote: > Stuff happens. > Peter Wieck > Melrose Park, PA **SNAP! Same thing happened to me on the 23rd December 2018. I put the garbage bin on the street, next to the power pole outside my home. I walked down the side passage and up the back steps. Hand on the back door and BOOM! Scared the crap out of me. Lights went dead, TV off. Checked the breaker box and, when I opened the box, bits of one of those bakelite aluminium disk type power meters fell at my feet. No breaker out. No power. Called my next door neighbour and hooked up the essential stuff to his, still intact, power. Called my electricity supplier. Guy turned up that evening. Informed me that both 'service fuses' (70 Amp - 2 phase) had failed and I needed to arrange for a level 2 electrician (the grade above a regular electrician) to replace them (don't forget: It is 230VAC per phase mains over here). Level 2 electrician came over, replaced the ancient fuses and holders with 100 Amp HRC types. $1,000.00. Then I began to take stock of the damage. EVERYTHING connected to my home network was fried. My 2 month old, $1,700.00 HP laptop, TV sets, phone system, modem, printer and a bunch of other stuff. Insurance covered everything, with a $1,000.00 deductible. I estimate that I lost about $6,000.00 worth of stuff. Luckily my Rigol 'scope wasn't connected to the computer. Moral: Everything is wi-fi now. The lightning hit the 20 Metre tree in my front yard. Killed the top half. If it had hit 15 seconds earlier, I may have been injured by a tracer. 2 days before Christmas. YIKES! I reckon I could have had the electrical work done for less than $300.00, if it had been at any other time of the year. |
| KenW <ken1943@invalid.net>: Sep 30 04:30PM -0600 On Thu, 30 Sep 2021 11:43:14 -0700 (PDT), "Peter W." >Stuff happens. >Peter Wieck >Melrose Park, PA Nothing survives a direct hit. KenW |
| Clifford Heath <no.spam@please.net>: Oct 01 11:22AM +1000 On 1/10/21 4:43 am, Peter W. wrote: > a) We lost our cable-modem and all three TV boxes. > b) We lost two older televisions - both protected by surge-protectors, but we expect that the damage was via the cable input, not the electrical input. > e) We lost the (Dell) computer power-supply brick - on a surge-protected UPS, go figure. These three items point to a strike on the cable modem, spreading via Ethernet wiring, and exiting by the house power, back to the street. That happened to us 2 years ago, $10,000 in damage (covered). Better grounding probably would have helped. Wifi would have helped too - but it's not fast enough to get reasonable throughput to the NAS. I think the right answer is to have the cable modem and WiFi on one side, with any wired Ethernet completely air-gapped. No penalty as long as the Wifi is as fast as our cable, which ours is. Having one set of wiring coming into the house means a strike must exit through local ground. Having two sets means it can come in one and exit the other, dramatically increasing the catchment area for any strikes. Clifford Heath |
| Michael Terrell <terrell.michael.a@gmail.com>: Sep 30 08:56PM -0700 On Thursday, September 30, 2021 at 2:43:17 PM UTC-4, Peter W. wrote: > e) We lost the (Dell) computer power-supply brick - on a surge-protected UPS, go figure. But not the computer, or the printer. > Our Utility (PECO) visited the following day, and spent nearly an hour at our house, checking the pole-pig, and remaking the bugs between the pig and the house for us and for our nearest neighbors. They also checked and verified the grounds three houses in both directions. Our electrician spent two hours checking the box and load-testing, as well as replacing the damaged GFI devices. He found (and replaced) one additional receptacle with a bad ground. Directly related? - unknown. Comcast replaced our modem and all our TV boxes the following morning, and Amazon supplied us with two new 'smart' televisions and phones for very nearly pocket-change, also by the following day. > All-in, the "spend" was well under US$1,000, considerably less than our insurance deductible. And no damage to the house at all. As it was built in 1890, I suspect that it has survived far worse. I had one hit the marsh behind my home in the mid '90s. I was inside my shop that had no windows, but it lit up thee inside. It caused a battery powered thermometer to explode, and killed my SVGA monitor that wasn't connected to anything. The video cable was coiled up around the base. The news reported over 1100 strikes in my area, in under a half hour. I had the WACX TV mobile production unit at a telethon for a place for disabled children. We had loaned it to a low power non profit TV station to cover a marathon. They had a large party tent at the finish line, in front of their building. They had a platform for a camera operator, under it. He was about a foot away from one of the steel poles when lightning struck, out of a clear sky. It arced to his back, and knocked him down. It also caused every piece of equipment in the mobile unit to fail. It would have likely damaged their studio, if we hadn't used a video isolation network. That was about $50,000 worth of equipment. The original WACX studio site was also hit. It took out the 1A2 phone system, the 11GHz CARS system that we used as a STL, along with the computer terminals. It fried all the LNAs on two dishes, along with some electrical damage. It also blew away part of the concrete wall of the building. It did major damage to the CATV system, as well but their manager loaned us a bucket truck to replace the LNAs even though their crew was working until dark to restore service.. The microwave link had to be returned to the factory for three weeks, as we tried to get by with a rented loaner. We ended up having to have a driver make a daily trip 30+ miles one way each day to deliver U-Matic tapes to the new Master Control at the new transmitter site. Another strike hit the barn. It caused the TV antenna to explode, and got into the phone line. It took out the SLIC at the street and continued on into town to the CO. That 10 miles of copper was destroyed. It damaged a stereo and destroyed a C band satellite receiver. There is a reason people use plastic pipe from their wells into their homes, in Florida. I had just moved into this house in 1999 when lightning hit a tree in the Florida Greenbelt. It split the tree, and abot the top third fell to the ground. That strike took out a brand new 56K modem. Lightning happens. :( |
| Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au>: Oct 01 02:04PM +1000 On 1/10/2021 1:56 pm, Michael Terrell wrote: > There is a reason people use plastic pipe from their wells into their homes, in Florida. > I had just moved into this house in 1999 when lightning hit a tree in the Florida Greenbelt. It split the tree, and abot the top third fell to the ground. That strike took out a brand new 56K modem. > Lightning happens. :( **Wow! 56k. So fast. :-) |
| Rob <nomail@example.com>: Oct 01 09:35AM +0200 >>Peter Wieck >>Melrose Park, PA > Nothing survives a direct hit. Stuff that is prepared for direct hits survives them just fine. Of course it requires measures that are too expensive for the typical (not highrise) house, but e.g. telecom towers often get hit several times a year without any adverse effects. |
| KenW <ken1943@invalid.net>: Oct 01 05:30AM -0600 >Of course it requires measures that are too expensive for the typical >(not highrise) house, but e.g. telecom towers often get hit several >times a year without any adverse effects. Most of us can not afford a faraday cage. KenW |
| Rob <nomail@example.com>: Oct 01 01:42PM +0200 >>times a year without any adverse effects. > Most of us can not afford a faraday cage. > KenW So it should have been "nothing that most of us can afford survives a direct hit". |
| Michael Terrell <terrell.michael.a@gmail.com>: Oct 01 08:57AM -0700 On Friday, October 1, 2021 at 12:04:48 AM UTC-4, Trevor Wilson wrote: > **Wow! 56k. So fast. :-) It was, in 1999. Broadband didn't hit this area for another year or so. It was only 3 Gb/second when it did. Now, some parts of town offer 1Gb/second. on Fiber. The kU band uplink that we built for the ISS in 2000, was 40Mb/second. |
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