result of a direct hit by lightning

[rollatorwieltje]

Just to show what a direct lightning strike can do...
Yesterday there was a thunderstorm over here. Very close to where I live a house suffered a direct hit in the chimney. The bang was insane, it sounded like a bomb went off.

http://www.rijnmond.nl/nieuws/10-06-2014/bewoners-komen-met-schrik-vrij-na-blikseminslag
http://www.rijnmond.nl/nieuws/11-06-2014/woning-maanden-onbewoonbaar-door-bliksem

The first article has some pictures of the outside, the second article has a video that shows the inside.
Basically everything is destroyed. The roof was lifted off and fell back, all the roof tiles were blown off, the chimney is just completely gone, the outside wall is dislodged... The trashed electrical system is only a minor issue.
The elderly couple that lived there survived without injury.

[dannyf]

There was a video of a car being struck by lightening, in either UK or Australia. It destroyed all the electronics in the car and produced two big holes on the pavement. An old couple riding inside walked away, with the help of officers who happened to be nearby.

[grumpydoc]

There was a video of a car being struck by lightening, in either UK or Australia. It destroyed all the electronics in the car and produced two big holes on the pavement. An old couple riding inside walked away, with the help of officers who happened to be nearby.

Being in a car should be OK as the current takes the nice low resistance path through the metalwork.

[Neilm]

Here is the result of a lightning strike hitting a mine truck

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/204047/SA08-03-Lightning-strikes-stationary-truck.pdf

[G7PSK]

When I was 8 years old the house I was in got hit by lightning while I was in it, one hell of a bang. It struck the chimney and ran down the stack and blew the stove right across the kitchen and through the opposite wall. Luckily for us the dog warned my mother by pulling on her skirt and she moved all of us to the stairs in the hall seconds before the strike we had been in the kitchen.

[G0HZU]

The closest I've been is to witness a vertical strike that hit the ground (actually a building) about 100 metres away from me. It was pretty awesome to see the arc when so close. You can see and almost feel the pulses of energy within the big fat arc. It hit a friend's house and damaged the chimney and destroyed some aerials and associated electrics. Oh and it made a huge bang as well

[nanofrog]

Closest for me, was during a family picnic. Sudden storm came up, and a large tree was struck ~10m away from us, just overhead. Huge bang, and the trunk was split.

[FrankenPC]

Direct hit on a tree recorded by security cam:

http://io9.com/this-is-why-you-dont-hide-under-a-tree-during-a-lightni-1587652722

[SeanB]

Lightning struck the building next door to me where I used to live. Wiped out a lot of the computer systems in there, and blew up the TV distribution amplifier on our side, along with popping assoreted electronics that were plugged in in other flats. I had no damage, thanks to the large number of VDR  plugtops I have scattered around, and having all the computer and modems equipotential bonded to a common earth point.

There was a place where lightning struck the outdoor telephone wiring 30km from town, and travelled down the wiring to the exchange. jumped the primary and secondary lightning barriers and detonated everything inside the exchange. Only thing that survived was the battery bank. They had to cut the racking apart to get cards out, so cut it all off and dumped it outside, and went to a new installation that was near complete and took it all, and moved it to replace the blown one. The phone lines outdoors were vapourised in large sections where there were standing waves, and in town every phone rang once then was dead. That took a week to rebuild, the donor town had to wait another 3 months before they got a new system, but they still had a manual operator to do the job.

[GreyWoolfe]

A couple of years ago, we had a lightning strike right out in front of the house.  It lit up the entire living room.  It damaged the DVR and cable company modem, 2 ports on my switch and took out the 2 computers attached to those 2 ports.  The computers were no loss, they were old freebies.  Because of extensive equipment damage in the area, it took a day and a half for the cable company to get to us (Sunday evening strike, Tuesday morning service).  The strike also vaporized part of a mast mounted 2 meter ham radio antenna and fried the coax.  The PL-259 connector in the shack was black.  Luckily, I disconnect all antennas as soon as I hear thunder.

[janoc]

Just to show what a direct lightning strike can do...
Yesterday there was a thunderstorm over here. Very close to where I live a house suffered a direct hit in the chimney. The bang was insane, it sounded like a bomb went off.

http://www.rijnmond.nl/nieuws/10-06-2014/bewoners-komen-met-schrik-vrij-na-blikseminslag
http://www.rijnmond.nl/nieuws/11-06-2014/woning-maanden-onbewoonbaar-door-bliksem

The first article has some pictures of the outside, the second article has a video that shows the inside.
Basically everything is destroyed. The roof was lifted off and fell back, all the roof tiles were blown off, the chimney is just completely gone, the outside wall is dislodged... The trashed electrical system is only a minor issue.
The elderly couple that lived there survived without injury.

That house is pretty much a write-off, IMO. Fixing all that structural damage is going to be extremely expensive. I hope they had a good insurance.

Also note that there are no lightning rods and grounding system anywhere on the roof. Many people still think that having that installed is an overkill and that the house cannot get hit because there are taller things nearby ...  Someone has learned a very painful and expensive lesson here, methinks ...

[dannyf]

Someone has learned a very painful and expensive lesson here, methinks ...

Not necessarily. Just because there is a risk (of lightening in this case) doesn't mean it is worth it to insure against that risk. We have different risk tolerance.

[German_EE]

I once attended a house where the incoming overhead 220V feed had been struck by lightning. The house looked like a building site because the current flowing through the cables buried in the walls generated intense magnetic fields, fields strong enough to push the cable out of the plaster. The old man living in the house told us that he wasn't bothered as he had been struck by lightning as a boy and survived.

[Len]

Being in a car should be OK as the current takes the nice low resistance path through the metalwork.

Don't count on it. In this incident that happened in Canada last week the cabin filled with smoke, the doors were jammed shut, and the people inside would have died if a passing Mountie hadn't been there to smash open the window.

[SeanB]

At least they do not have to worry about the ignition switch recall.............

Good reason to have that small glass break hammer inside the vehicle where it is easy to reach when needed.

[corrado33]

Being in a car should be OK as the current takes the nice low resistance path through the metalwork.

Don't count on it. In this incident that happened in Canada last week the cabin filled with smoke, the doors were jammed shut, and the people inside would have died if a passing Mountie hadn't been there to smash open the window.

And this is why my cars have physical locks. Aka I can yank on the lock even if there is no power to the system. Damn new technology. Who ever though it was smart to have the little lock lever disappear when you lock it wasn't thinking very far ahead.

[FrankenPC]

Being in a car should be OK as the current takes the nice low resistance path through the metalwork.

Don't count on it. In this incident that happened in Canada last week the cabin filled with smoke, the doors were jammed shut, and the people inside would have died if a passing Mountie hadn't been there to smash open the window.

And this is why my cars have physical locks. Aka I can yank on the lock even if there is no power to the system. Damn new technology. Who ever though it was smart to have the little lock lever disappear when you lock it wasn't thinking very far ahead.

My car has full electronic locks, bu they also have a lever override on each side of the front seats.  I can't imagine NOT having a mechanical override.  That's too dangerous.

[mtdoc]

2  personal lighning stories:

1. Several years ago I was hiking in the Lake Distric in England. Walked through a meadow with a beautiful, large, several hundred year old oak tree in the middle of a large field. Later a thunderstorm came through with all kinds of lightning. Walking back out the oak tree was gone - all that remained was a large area of smolderling chunks of oak. Tree had been completely obliterated!

2. On a plane flying into Seattle airport during a thunderstorm our plane was hit by lightning. Large flash and boom. Cabin lights out for a few seconds.  Captain says we were hit by lightning. Plane diverted to Portand.

There's not a lot of lightning where I live now but I do have some Midnite Solar SPDs installed to protect my solar system's electronics.

BTW - the popular "Delta" SPDs are crap. See this video:

[calexanian]

Our products go into an agricultural environment and sometimes are the highest metal object in the middle of thousands of acres of low growing crops. From time to time we see units come back from the field with varying degrees of lightning strikes. Sometimes small "Stringers" will hit the metal chassis while the main arc hits the ground. Sometimes the main arc hits the box and just blows it apart or melts it. Sometimes a direct strike only leaves a little burnt spot on the paint outside, and everything inside is burned to a crisp. Lightning is strange. I have also seen it actually make a hole all the way through on its way to striking something else as a rifle bullet might do, and es. We sometimes get them in for repair with rifle bullets in them. When we used to have metal face plates inside the steel box this was more common. Now that we went to plastic fast plates the bullets usually go all the way through.