[Tech1] Lightning strike

Sat Apr 3 07:34:15 CDT 2021

Hi, 

Thank you for the emails and the links. It was definitely a ball the size of a small football.  It was truly awesome. 

Take care everyone

Sara

> On 3 Apr 2021, at 11:10, Keith Wicks <keithwicksuk at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> "Ball lightning is often erroneously identified as St. Elmo's fire <https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwiki2.org%2Fen%2FSt._Elmo%2527s_fire&data=04%7C01%7C%7C62d3171a325d474495c008d8f688cd3a%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637530414711772915%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=df053YSZXasfA7tySUFSGxhIJB77oAFaxt51E2RRVQM%3D&reserved=0>. They are separate and distinct phenomena."
> 
> See:
> 
> https://wiki2.org/en/Ball_lightning <https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwiki2.org%2Fen%2FBall_lightning&data=04%7C01%7C%7C62d3171a325d474495c008d8f688cd3a%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637530414711782913%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=eJrgDvYCL0EMZWp8Cimh%2F0gBQpuQWgCBLymtE6cs2So%3D&reserved=0>
> 
> KW
> 
> On Sat, 3 Apr 2021 at 09:47, sara newman via Tech1 <tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk <mailto:tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk>> wrote:
> On  May 6th  1993( The date is emblazoned on my memory  we were living and renovating  an old  house just outside Tunbridge Wells. The phone line came in from a pole across the road set in a rather boggy area. At about 9 o’clock I decided to go to bed early as the baby I was feeding was 10 months old and I was very very tired.  I was sitting on the side of the bed when there was a flash of lightening just outsider the window. It was brighter than any light I had ever seen. The phone next to the bed glowed and the ball of lightening entered the room at the end of the bed. (St Elmo Fire) and hung there for what seemed several seconds. I followed it onto the landing past my daughters room who also saw it and my sons it then dropped down into the kitchen below where we later found it ended incinerating the new washing machine. Every appliance in the house that was plugged in and “on” was gutted/incinerated.  I had purchased a new Zanussi washing machine which I had had an issue with and the engineer was to come first thing next day. Obviously having no experience of this and trying to calm the children we wen to bed and decided to sort it out in the morning!!!. I turned the washing machine on when I first got up and smoke came out of it. the man from Zanussi came round that afternoon, service in the old days was amazing then ! He took the top off and was so shocked by the molten circuit boards that he replaced the machine later that day! Apparently we should have called the fire brigade ( I did not tell the engineer  of the events of the night before, he must have thought it was a malfunction of this brand new model.) I took the computer to a repair shop and he was also shocked by the interior of the machine and it was then that I began to understand the true import of the lightening strike, It all felt quite surreal and impossible. (after training in trauma therapy for 10 years it was clearly PTSD but at the time no one talked about it then but now its as banded about whern someone has had any kind of shock)  I then contacted he insurance company. We were  in the process and nearly completing  putting a ghost electrics system in, which we then hurriedly connected up putting surge fuses in. The pole had several other later strikes affecting the house next door who also had to put surge fuses in the system as the pole attracted lightening sending the surge through the telephone lines. 11 years later having therapy for another tragic issue I had a flash back and filled in the missing memories. It was only then that I remember the deafening noise of the ball of lightening. There was no storm just that since strike. 
> 
> sara
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On 2 Apr 2021, at 20:16, David Newbitt via Tech1 <tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk <mailto:tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk>> wrote:
>> 
>> Popular wisdom generally asserted that lightning would always strike at the highest point but I have often wondered just what is meant by this adage. How far away does a significantly taller strike point have to be to provide effective protection? Our village church tower is barely 100 yds. distant and has impressive looking conductors but I suspect provides no reason for complacency.
>>  
>> Dave Newbitt.
>>  
>> From: Hugh Sheppard via Tech1 <>
>> Sent: Friday, April 2, 2021 6:28 PM
>> To: Tech1 at tech-ops <>
>> Subject: [Tech1] Lightning strike
>>  
>> A temporary resident family has been renting a few doors away and is about to return 'home' after 8 months repairs following a lightning strike. Only yesterday did I learn the story.  
>> 
>> Conventional modern detached house among others; several fires affecting carpets and appliances in the kitchen, living room and bedrooms after a strike via an external TV aerial with power amplified distribution outlets. Not content with stripping all mains insulation throughout the house, it dived underground via the mains circuit and burnt out cabling to 3 or 4  neighbours, one of whom saw a fire-line run across the carpet in the living room, caused by a cable-run directly underneath. None as badly affected as our current😉 neighbour who counts himself fortunate having had unlimited buildings and alternative accommodation insurance. 
>> 
>> The only surviving PC of 3 was a lap-top with a surge protector, but nearly all other electrical appliances were burned out, while complete re-wiring, a new central heating boiler and related building work took months. For neighbours, most wiring survived but appliances either failed there and then or have done so since. Apparently it's the alternative accommodation clause of buildings policies that can be an Achilles heel, as most folk think only in terms of a couple of months at most. While the brick carcase of a fairly recent house is likely to survive a serious fire, older buildings can require a complete ground-up re-build, implying perhaps double the cost of a new-build on a similar site. 
>> 
>> Yet no one seems to fit lighting conductors nowadays do they?  Isn't there a business opportunity here for someone?    
>> 
>> Hugh      
>> 
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