Our house was struck by lighting

As the fellow Floridians know, we get pretty violent afternoon thunderstorms here during the summer that contain ALOT of lighting. Well yesterday afternoon was no exception. I had to run over to my mom and dads for a few minutes which is about a mile away. The storms hit while I was gone and my fiance was at home. I headed home in what ended up being the middle of the storm. When I got there he walked out of the office where he had been on the computer and said "you won't believe what happened!". Lighting struck the house and he said he was sitting at the computer and he saw a bolt come through the wall and take ahold of the television! He said it was the craziest thing he had ever seen. It happened fast, and it was like a bright white light and a very loud crack of thunder immediately after. Thank goodness he was ok because he sits literally 2 feet from the tv. The power went out a couple of minutes but it came back on and everything was working just fine. We are lucky because friends of ours had their house struck 3 weeks ago and they lost everything that was plugged in. I guess their house wasn't grounded well enough.

Good grief Tanya!, talk about lucky!!.

Thank goodness no serious damage was done

Holy smokes! That's enough to give you nightmares for a year!

One thing that was very suprising to me was that Dori seemed completely unaffected by it. She jumped a little but that was it. My first thought was that this happeend in the room her litter box is in she is not going to step foot back in there.

This happened to us a few years back - maybe hit the transformer on the electric pole outside... DH was at home and saw blue electrical lines going from one outlet to the next. I got hom an hour later and the outlets still smelled hot so I called the fire department. The weird thing is that it didn't damage anything that was plugged in .

Wow did you get lucky!!
One of my co-workers house got him last month by lightening and they lots lost of stuff-TV's, telephones, central vac, garage door openers etc......

I think, I'm not positive about this, but I think stuff has to be turned on for the surge to affect it. Which is really kind of odd that your computer wasn't affected if that's where your BF was sitting?!

*whew* lucky nothing worse happened!

I am glad that you are OK.
Dori is one cool cat.
Lei

wow that was lucky!

Yikes!!! What a scary experience!! I suppose your computer was plugged into a surge-protector strip? are there any electricians on TCS who could comment on this? I've always wondered about the effects of lightning hitting a house. When I was little, I was visiting friends, and we were feeding the cows when we heard a really weird, loud buzz/roar/zing (hard to describe sound) and immediately a HUGE clap of thunder. We ran to their house; their mom was so scared - she said a "ball" of lightning rolled through the screendoor, across the livingroom & into the TV! Sure enough, there was a scorch trail leading to the TV and the picture tube was in pieces, fortunately INTO the TV and not out (which seemed really weird). So creepy! I changed my mind about spending the night there that night.

Man, we have those storms every afternoon here in Houston! Last week, we had one so bad, it was like someone clapping consistently. Glad to here you were both ok and the kitties!! Be careful!

That IS scary! When I was a kid our TV came on during a lightning storm. It worked fine, but we could never shut it off. We had to unplug it.

Electricity has been around for a long time, but no one has figured out how it works.

Originally Posted by Rockcat

That IS scary! When I was a kid our TV came on during a lightning storm. It worked fine, but we could never shut it off. We had to unplug it.

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How weird!! That would be spooky! "Truth can be stranger than fiction". I think that I would have been scared to touch the plug.

Originally Posted by catsknowme

How weird!! That would be spooky! "Truth can be stranger than fiction". I think that I would have been scared to touch the plug.

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We were, but that didn't stop us. Thats when the good shows were on all 3 channels.

Good grief. I am so glad your sweetie is okay and your house!

Wow! I am very glad that you and your honey are ok! We got a power surge after the lines went down when a tornado went over our house. When to power was restored, we had a big surge, and it blew out a lot of things. Luckily dh is very handy, and replaced a part in the TV's to make them functional again. My daughter's karaoke machine was destroyed, etc. Now, when we have major storms, I unplug everything. Yes, even the power surge protectors for the computer! LOL! These things are so darned expensive!

Oh my goodness!!, I'm so glad that you are ok!

Wow, what a scary thing to happen! I'm glad your fiance and Dori are OK!