Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[yorkdude]

Oh man. Hopefully you can save stuff. I thought these kind of things only happened in the Midwest. We were swimming moments ago in the lake and BAM, lasted about 5 minutes but it got us to the boogie cart in a hurry.

[glitchy]

Sorry you are getting hit so hard this week. Hopefully it’s done now.

[Bentley]

I know we would be without power right now if they had not done that tree trimming all around the county 3 months ago!

[okie smokie]

Well, we had great news, bad news and irritating news..

 First, the great news -- a massive  storm came through yesterday and dumped an inch of rain; combined with the two other small rains in the past week and that is close to two inches in less than a week. This will make the difference in our neighbors having a crop to harvest or everything dying, so was truly an answer to prayers.

 Now the bad news -- lots of lightening during the storm and I swear that one had to strike within just a few yards of the house given both the boom and the rattling. Next thing we know, power is out (3:15 pm) and we just now, over 19 hours later, got it back on at 10:40 am.

The irritating news is that I spotted the Dominion truck at 10:15 am traveling down Corkey's lane checking all the lines, they return to the front of the drive where it meets Stevensburg Rd and literally 10 minutes later the power is on. So the annoying that it took 19 hours of discomfort for a 15 minute fix!

[pmillen]

My dad and I were fishing from a boat in the Red River (makes the border between Minnesota and North Dakota) when a storm blew in.  We thought, "So what?  The river's only about 100 feet wide here.  How rough can it get?"

Then lightening hit a tree on shore right next to us.  It blew that tree apart (steam explosion from boiling sap) and wood shards rained down on us.  We didn't say a word.  My dad started pulling on the outboard motor's starter rope and I was hauling on the anchor line.

[okie smokie]

My dad and I were fishing from a boat in the Red River (makes the border between Minnesota and North Dakota) when a storm blew in.  We thought, "So what?  The river's only about 100 feet wide here.  How rough can it get?"

Then lightening hit a tree on shore right next to us.  It blew that tree apart (steam explosion from boiling sap) and wood shards rained down on us.  We didn't say a word.  My dad started pulling on the outboard motor's starter rope and I was hauling on the anchor line.

Tree saved your lives probably since it was the highest structure and caught the strike.  Out on a lake you would have been the high spot.
One last unrequested lightning story: About 25 years ago we were in Branson with friends and out on the wooden porch of our time share. We had just finished a nice thunderstorm and it was quiet, rain had stopped and the sun was peaking out. Just as I was turning to go inside, lightning struck a large tree about 50 feet from us and I was so startled that I jumped up off the floor about 1.5 feet (I was told by my friend). Felt something snap in my right calve area and realized that I had broken my plantaris muscle tendon. (a common injury often in sports  i.e. tennis etc.).  Wasn't too worried till I noted that the whole calf was swelling rapidly. I had ruptured a large vein as well.  Took weeks to heal and I have had multiple varicosities in the area since then.  Later saw that the tree was split and would die.  As for the plantaris, it is not missed as it is thought to be a useless vestige from past times. 

[02ebz06]

Just a note about surge protectors.
When buying one pay attention to how fast it trips.
Some cheap ones will say trips in 10 nanoseconds. Sounds fast, right?
Well, electricity travels about 1 foot in an nanosecond.
So, when that spike on the line hits the surge protector, the spike goes 10 feet up the power cord to your equipment and can damage it before the surge protector even trips.
So when buying, look for ones that trip in 1 nanosecond.
Whole house surge protectors are another way to go.
They install at the circuit breaker.
More money, but it's one and done.  Don't need others scattered around house.
Even with surge protectors, there is no guarantee they will protect from a lightening strike.
They are so powerful they can jump the gap in the tripped surge protector.

Just my 

[okie smokie]

Just a note about surge protectors.
When buying one pay attention to how fast it trips.
Some cheap ones will say trips in 10 nanoseconds. Sounds fast, right?
Well, electricity travels about 1 foot in an nanosecond.
So, when that spike on the line hits the surge protector, the spike goes 10 feet up the power cord to your equipment and can damage it before the surge protector even trips.
So when buying, look for ones that trip in 1 nanosecond.
Whole house surge protectors are another way to go.
They install at the circuit breaker.
More money, but it's one and done.  Don't need others scattered around house.
Even with surge protectors, there is no guarantee they will protect from a lightening strike.
They are so powerful they can jump the gap in the tripped surge protector.

Just my 

Very good point.  Will check into it. 

[photofarm]

I have lived on a farm in Nebraska most of my life. Lightning comes in on the power line and can cause some really strange problems. The electrician did put a blow out fuse type thing for lightning on the meter box outside that should stop damage from getting on to the place. We have shut AC off during the thunderstorm before to make sure it didn't get damaged.

[Hank D Thoreau]

A couple of years ago during the big Southern California storms we had a giant eucalyptus tree fall on our neighbors house taking out the power pole. We were down for a couple of days since hospitals and other essential services took priority for power restoration. Finally, they brought in a 500 ton crane to replace the pole. They needed a 220 ton crane to set up the 500 ton crane. I believe it was to lay the large metal plate that the crane sat on. The replacement was complicated by access issues. The crane had to cantilever over the house from the street to get to the pole location. We ended up losing the food in our refrigerator. We survived though, better than the folks that lost their house. We just burned a lot of candles. I think the house was taken over by the insurance company and eventually fixed and sold.