OT: Monday night's storm damage

[Gary Majchrzak]

around 5PM- 7PM Monday evening an intense fast moving storm cell travelled from the shoreline of Lake Ontario in a southeasterly direction across the western side of Monroe County.
I heard the boomers coming and the clouds looked very threatening as they moved in from the north. I was prepared for the worst, but nothing ever happened here at our house besides a spectacular show of rain and lightning.
I did notice one particularly bright bolt that struck very close to the north of our house just before the rain started coming down. (It scared a Kestrel out of the woods behind our house.) The area that the bolt appeared to strike was our old neighborhood (we moved about a year and a half ago) and it didn't take very long to find out I was right.
We got a phone call from one of our previous neighbors. Apparently, one lightning bolt connected with the upstairs skylight in our previous house. Another bolt fried our neighbors stove, television and brand new computer. (They said that their whole house smelled like an electrical fire.)
Thank goodness I haven't heard of any serious injuries to anyone.

 

[suppressivefire]

i didnt even know it rained

 

[magdelan]

I love thunderstorms. But, you really don't pay attention to their strength untill it really "hit's home". I'm happy that no one was hurt.

 

[KurtsReef]

A bolt of lightning hit a transformer/pole a couple houses down from me a few years ago. One house feeds immediately off of that pole had everything electrical in their house not on some form of surge protector fried. As it turned out, that was everything except for one television set and VCR/DVD.

Our home suffered little to no damage as did most on the block.

The insurance company covered some but not all of their losses.

 

[redrider911]

When I was little, a bolt came down the fireplace and hit the fridge. I saw the bolt inside my house!!!!!

 

[dreaminmel]

A few years back in Steuben County my dad had lightning hit his house, fry the outlets in the kitchen and force a fireball to go flying across the kitchen table in front of him while he was eating his dinner. Of course he and his hunting buddies do have an awful lot of stories but I think there is some truth to that one...

In New Hampshire I watched a blue fireball roll down the road after lightning took out a transformer at my friend's house. The thing I have the MOST respect for on this earth is electricity...

 

[Lanceafer]

We had a bolt hit our back yard last year and it left a burn mark about 18" across. It fried our computers (3 of them) all the speakers in the house, a TV and the microwave. That was all from about 25 feet away without an apparently direct hit. Lucky the insurance covered everything and nobody got hurt.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

update

update

I finally found out what damage the lighning did to the house we moved out of about a year and a half ago:
it fried the matching oven and fridge (we bought both of them brand new just 3 years ago!), the dishwasher, their TV and computer. I can't imagine what would have happened if my aquarium had still been in that house

 

[Kent E]

I often worry about that. Perhaps an E engineer could tell us more but my hunch would be at the very least all the electric stuff would be shot.

 

[Kent E]

Come to think of it... I have a woodstove with the worlds tallest metal chimney and below that in the basement is an I beam, and then below that will be the new tank.

Hmmm. Should I be concerned?

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

good question. I haven't really explored this at all.

 

[redrider911]

I have seen whole house surge protectors that go in the breaker panel. I wonder if that would have helped. Maybe Spinleo or someone can shed a little light on this.