pete_c
Guru
Frederick, glad no one was hurt.
My sister had a tree hit by lightning about a week and a half ago. It was not a very large tree (less than 20 feet in height) and about 30 feet from the house. It didn't cause any electronic damage. The tree though had to be removed as the lightning split the tree in half.
In the 1970's I helped a friend install a CB antenna on the roof of his ranch style home. The antenna wasn't that high and was on a tripod. We were in the process of connecting it and had not connected the earth ground (lightning arrestor) when a storm started to brew (it was only grey clouds). We did get off the roof though and went into the house. It hadn't started to rain. The other end of the antenna cable was about 1-2 feet away from a 120VAC outlet. We sat there in his family room for a bit and all of sudden we started to see an arc from the antenna coaxial outlet to the 120VAC outlet. It happened a few times in the next 15-20 minutes. No rain outside; just very grey and only some lightning and thunder. The arcing to his 120VAC lines didn't cause any harm but there were really not too many "electronics" plugged in to his home at the time.
My sister had a tree hit by lightning about a week and a half ago. It was not a very large tree (less than 20 feet in height) and about 30 feet from the house. It didn't cause any electronic damage. The tree though had to be removed as the lightning split the tree in half.
In the 1970's I helped a friend install a CB antenna on the roof of his ranch style home. The antenna wasn't that high and was on a tripod. We were in the process of connecting it and had not connected the earth ground (lightning arrestor) when a storm started to brew (it was only grey clouds). We did get off the roof though and went into the house. It hadn't started to rain. The other end of the antenna cable was about 1-2 feet away from a 120VAC outlet. We sat there in his family room for a bit and all of sudden we started to see an arc from the antenna coaxial outlet to the 120VAC outlet. It happened a few times in the next 15-20 minutes. No rain outside; just very grey and only some lightning and thunder. The arcing to his 120VAC lines didn't cause any harm but there were really not too many "electronics" plugged in to his home at the time.