Struck by Lightning Survival Tale

[RicInOR]

In The Blink Of An Eye – The Laughing Wolf

I am sharing this as forewarned is forearmed, for a just-in-case idea. I had not heard some of what he writes about, and my mother-in-law had been struck while on the golf course -- mostly it seems to have struck the ground and traveled to her that way, rather than a direct hit.

Read More

 

[OldBroad44]

In The Blink Of An Eye – The Laughing Wolf

I am sharing this as forewarned is forearmed, for a just-in-case idea. I had not heard some of what he writes about, and my mother-in-law had been struck while on the golf course -- mostly it seems to have struck the ground and traveled to her that way, rather than a direct hit.

I didn't realize this until I looked it up just now, but apparently most houses don't have lightening rods these days, as its considered too unlikely that lightening would hit a house. But that depends on the location of house, and frequency of thunderstorms, obviously.

 

[mkwerx]

I didn't realize this until I looked it up just now, but apparently most houses don't have lightening rods these days, as its considered too unlikely that lightening would hit a house. But that depends on the location of house, and frequency of thunderstorms, obviously.

We get daily thunderstorms for part of the year here. A few months ago, our neighbor had a tall pine tree 40 feet from their house zapped - blew part of the tree top apart. That's the closest direct hit I've seen since being here (I was outside mowing my pasture when I saw the bolt hit, the property it struck is probably 300 linear yards from my house) - needless to say, my mowing was done for the afternoon! I don't think i've seen a lightning rod on a house here. More surprisingly - we have a cell tower about 1,000 feet away from us due east of our house, and it hasn't been zapped since we've been here. I'd think that it would've drawn any strike - since its taller than the surrounding trees and made of metal.

 

[Nibbs]

I lived in Milwaukie & lightning hit a telephone pole abt 20 ft from our driveway.
It was as if someone had taken a 1 inch chisel & stripped off 4 slices from top to bottom.

In the late 20s my Grandfather & his oldest son Mo were in their field near Ogden Utah & a bolt struck but had dissipated into multi fingers & one got him, so me Gramps ran over to him & enroute he got belted too...

When Mo got up & saw Gramps he ran over to him & got hit again.....

Both lived to ripe old ages...

 

[solv3nt]

I didn't realize this until I looked it up just now, but apparently most houses don't have lightening rods these days, as its considered too unlikely that lightening would hit a house. But that depends on the location of house, and frequency of thunderstorms, obviously.

Nope, but all steel piping and electrical is bonded to earth with a #6 AWG bare copper wire. At the service entrance, there's either a 10' ground rod or a eufer ground, which is basically using the rebar in the concrete to provide a solid earth connection. #6 AWG is good for about 20,000 amperes for one cycle, or 1/60th of a second (about the duration of a lightning strike).

In general, most houses are made of wood and aren't that great of an electrical conductor. It would be unfortunate to be in a cast iron tub if your house got a direct hit.

 

[Howard1955]

In The Blink Of An Eye – The Laughing Wolf

I am sharing this as forewarned is forearmed, for a just-in-case idea. I had not heard some of what he writes about, and my mother-in-law had been struck while on the golf course -- mostly it seems to have struck the ground and traveled to her that way, rather than a direct hit.

Wow.

 

[USMC1911]

Nope, but all steel piping and electrical is bonded to earth with a #6 AWG bare copper wire. At the service entrance, there's either a 10' ground rod or a eufer ground, which is basically using the rebar in the concrete to provide a solid earth connection. #6 AWG is good for about 20,000 amperes for one cycle, or 1/60th of a second (about the duration of a lightning strike).

In general, most houses are made of wood and aren't that great of an electrical conductor. It would be unfortunate to be in a cast iron tub if your house got a direct hit.

New construction is two rods ten feet that is assuming they didn't hit hard stuff and chop it off well before it got to depth.

 

[solv3nt]

New construction is two rods ten feet that is assuming they didn't hit hard stuff and chop it off well before it got to depth.

Code requires one grounding electrode, two if the grounding electrode system is greater than 25 ohms. One permissable grounding electrode is the concrete encased electrode, eufer ground, that is comprised of x' of a minimum diameter rebar.

 

[Nibbs]

Code requires one grounding electrode, two if the grounding electrode system is greater than 25 ohms. One permissable grounding electrode is the concrete encased electrode, eufer ground, that is comprised of x' of a minimum diameter rebar.

I had to set a 1/2" solid copper grounding rod into the ground at some apartments built in the 60s for some current code requirement.
The Electrical inspector was Kool.

But trying to hammer that rod into the groud was a B I O T ch...

So I got a section of 1/2" straight copper tubing & hooked it up to a 3/4" 1/4 turn ball valve & Hydro Drilled that hole in seconds.. And I have used it for a number of things like driving metal fence posts into hard ground...

The other 4 buildings on the property apparently aren't at risk. Only the one w/ new work so Milwaukie can SUCK More Money from us....

Now they wanna control whether you get to cut a tree down...

What ever happened to that Idear abt God Given Natural Rights:

Being held secure in your right to own property
"Turf & Twig; 500 Ft Up & 500 Ft down"...
'Cept THEY can take it away from you for your failure to comply w/ some
BULL Shyte "REVENUE GATHERING" Rule THEY come up with...

Sorry abt the "Hi Jack!"

 

[JuglansRegia]

An old trick to easily pound in grounding rods is to use your rotohammer, just take out the bit first

 

[Jonnyuma]

I was hanging out with a buddy one evening a couple of years ago. It rained for a while and l went home.

No sooner had l pulled into my driveway than he called me... he'd had a lightening strike directly across the street. Wow.

He and a few others ran to the scene to see if they could help... seems the neighbor was videotaping some fireworks from her back porch and got struck. She lived and had the whole thing ON TAPE (or video, whatever). Double-Wow.

I asked him to keep an eye on FB for the video... I'd kinda like to see it to satisfy my own morbid curiosity, but it never showed up. My guess was/is that she was expecting a big payday from TLC or Discovery Channel for the footage so kept it under wraps. It's possible they may have bought it, but doubtful they paid much for it. They probably put it in a file to be buried in a future "When Nature Attacks!!!" docu-thing and made her agree not to put it in the public domain, thereby denying all of us cable-less cretins the joy of witnessing our neighbor getting electrocuted by God hisself.

Life is so unfair.

 

[P7M13]

Life is so unfair.

Yep. She lived. Otherwise it would have been on the news.

 

[red442joe]

An old trick to easily pound in grounding rods is to use your rotohammer, just take out the bit first

There is a bit for doing that.

Joe

 

[OldBroad44]

I've read that in some cases you can feel the electric charge gathering. So if you are walking across an open field in a thunder storm, and your hair stands up, throw yourself to the ground immediately. And maybe the bolt will go between the sky and the big tree on the edge of the field instead of through you.