Lightning strikes again
Multiple members of my immediate family have been struck by lightning at various points in their lives, and as a result, I’ve always been a bit drawn to thunderstorms. Like saturday evening, when I was standing on a metal ladder in crocs cleaning the gutters. Or saturday afternoon, when the Conex box I was in was apparently struck by lighning. (The person who was there with me claims to have peed himself a bit) (I myself very nearly became incontinent) the flash and bang were exactly coincident, and the lights went out, though there was still power.
There was about four inches of water almost everywhere, so neither of us felt it was a paricularly smart idea to go out to the post and reset the main breaker.
Nice that it was a conex box, though, because it was like a faraday cage; perfect place to be during a storm- just not entering or leaving. It’s particularly well grounded, maybe we ought to put a lightning rod on top, though.
I’ve been in buildings struck by lightning 4 times. One time was in a summer thunderstorm in a downtown highrise hotel I worked at here in Charlotte, NC; the hotel management thought it was a good idea to shut down air conditioning to the lobby on the 11-7 shift I worked, so we were sweltering in t-shirts at the front desk.
Suddenly a bolt of lightning hit the bank tower next to the hotel, which scared the crap out of everyone. I immediately called up to the maintenance crew, which had their office just below the hotel’s roof:
“Hey, did you hear that lightning just now?”
“Well, of COURSE I heard it.”
“Good. I just got a phone call from God. He said that was just a ranging shot, and if you don’t turn the fucking A/C back on, the next one hits the hotel.”
A/C was back on in five minutes.
Robert, that was epic!
LOL @ mts1!!
I have been tickled three times by near misses… the most dramatic was when I got caught in a epic thunderstorm while on my KLR… feeling the tingle through wet gloves just before the purple flashBANG as it vaporized the telephone wires along the road a few metres on my right. I think I recited the whole bible that ride!