Storm a while ago

We had a storm here in southern Ohio a while ago and I had just finished sharpening my Son's lawn mower blade and was closing the overhead aluminum garage door and there was a great big boom and the lightning hit the garage door and me. I must not have gotten too much of a jolt cause I told Earl what had just happened. Felt a little light headed and staggered once and scared the heck out of Mommy when I told her. She gave me a good looking over and said my thumb and index finger looked a bit black.
Old Satan tried to get me and the Lord wouldn't allow it. My Sister Shirley always said I was lucky...hope I haven't used up all the good. Heres something you can put in your memmory chips...the first thunder/lightning has to start somewhere...give yourself plenty of time to get away from the metal and trees...best to go right in the house and still stay away from metal objects...ohfred

Makes a guy THINK, don't it!

The closes I've been to a ZZAP like that was many years ago, I was in a neighbor's barn at milking time when a bolt hit and blew out most of the light bulbs in the barn as well as destroying one of the lightning rods and a few other things.

The NOISE way quite unpleasant!

Sure glad your both O.K. I've heard that the enegery from a lightning bolt would power up NYC for quite a while (if it could be controled),now thats power!!!!I don;t know what the rechord for having lightning hit a person (time and again)but happy it isn't me. lol
LOU

A few years ago, I went out for the mail. I knew there was a storm comming at us, but it was dying fast as it raced across the county. I checked on it's status once I reached the mailbox. There was a lone rain shaft & you could tell it was petering out; not a flash or rumble. I did an about face & headed back to the house. Not 20' from the road, while looking at some clouds over the house, everything went white. I froze. The report from that bolt left a ringing in my ears that sounded like an 806 snarling on a mix-all. Shapes & other things started to come back to me. I shuffled back to the garage to sit down & figure out what happened. I took my hat off & rubbed my head, hoping for the ringing to subside. I started to check myself over & noticed my feet were quite hot. I went to undo my laces & the knot came off in my hands. I pulled the other knot off & kicked off my shoes. The soles were close to smooth with gravel stuck in the rubber! I also noticed some faint black skid marks on the concrete floor where I walked in the garage. It felt like I was walking on a sunburn. My feet hurt for a week! As I was trying to figure out what happened, I found the culprit tree in the front yard. It's a tree that has a history of being struck a few times in the past. The distance from that tree, to my position in the driveway, is about 150'. I was roughly 30' out of the hot zone. My outcome may have differed if the ground was saturated with rain & not dampened by sprinkles.

Another interesting find: The button on top of my cap had a small hole burned out of the material. This may (I emphasize may as I'm not 100% sure) have been left behind by a +streamer. A streamer being the positive leader reaching up to the negative leader comming out of the clouds. There can be a few streamers & the -leader will connect with the hottest streamer or the path of least resistance & viola, you have lightning. Fortunately, it weren't me! Hopefully, it won't be any of you readers either. Sure, generations before you have gotten out of the fields just fine with rain & lightning lickin' at their heels. I just don't know how many chances everyone gets when lightning chooses to audition you for a strike & goes the other way. Unless your job or whatever you're doing is so pressing you need to stay out in the elements, don't be a lightning rod. That storm was about 7 or 8 miles out when it lit up my life. - Mike

My Dad had a good friend that went out into the woods on a drizzling day and woke up in the hospital 2 days later with burns all over his body. The doctor treating him, told him what they were trynig to treat him with and what they would try if the inital treatment failed. He said to the doctor, " well, what do you usually do with people that have been struck by lightning??". The doctor said, "Mostly, we bury them"

My great grandfather was killed by "ball lightning" while getting in hay near Lebanon, MO around the turn of the century. His son was nearby, was dazed and wandered around in the woods for 2 days, and was just beginning to come to his senses when found by neighbors. He made a complete recovery.

I got an indirect hit through a cow when I was about 13. Head leaning against her while milking- lightning hit close by, through the cows and me. Sickening sight to see all the cows in the barn down to their knees, and bellaring. Power was out, we hooked a small hose to the intake manifold of the WC and finished milking with 1 or 2 units.

20+ years ago I lived in the city at the bottom of a hill,I was in my front yard on a Sat. morning and was folding a tarp I was on my knees and my wife was standing at the front door .It looked as though it was going to storm but it was not raining.I leaned forward to fold the tarp right when lighting came down the hill it veered to the right and caught the roof of another house on fire a block down the street.I couldn"t see momentarily and it smelled of rotten eggs. When I managed to stand up and get in the house which mind you was very quickly.My wife looked at me and told me you need to go look in the mirror my eyebrows, eyelashes,moustache,and the hair on the front of my head was cinched off.Needless to say I gained great respect for the weather that day and I don"t dally around outside when there is a storm coming.Weather in my opinion is the most awesome power in the world.

Must be 2 years ago I was helping my parents milk when lightning struck the old power pole less than 50' from the barn. That pole used to supply power to the barn through my grandma's house, and the house end was still hooked up just the breaker was tripped off.

It burnt up the breaker, blew the cover off the panel on the pole, blew our the well pump, 1/2 the lightbulbs in the barn, the barn cleaner motor, milker motor blew a capaciter, cooler compressor, and probably a few other things I can't remember now. Scared the living SHlT outta me.

Donovan from Wisconsin

Did not see this one strike but it must have been impressive. About twenty years ago I worked for a home builder. We had a house framed and sheeted and had one inch "blueboard" insulation on the outside walls. One Monday we came to work and the sixty foot tall Pine tree that had stood some twenty feet from the house was lying on the ground next to a ten foot tall VERY ragged stump...The tree had a ten inch wide spiral mark around the trunk (think elongated barber pole markings) where the bark was missing from the top to the bottom! AWESOME-- The house had about thirty, eight to ten inch slivers sticking out of the foamboard. The best part was the neighbors home which was about sixty five feet away had a cement patio which was missing a three foot piece of the corner nearest to the tree where the lightning had jumped from the tree to the reinforcing bars in the concrete! The biggest piece of concrete from the missing piece was about seven inches in size!! Holy Crap!! I would have loved to have seen that hit-----from a safe distance of course LOL!

I was working wiring a new house a few years ago during a thunderstorm. While me and the journeyman were putting wires in the panel lightning hit the power lines outside, the plumber saw it hit, it came in through the transformer, through the temporary feeder to the panel, and jumped 4" from the hot lugs to the bare ground wires in my hands. I just heard a SNAP and the sideof my foot hurt. I was amazed and said "what the F was that?". My journey man smiled and just said "that was lightning". Just had a little mark on my foot where my shoe was wet and it came out of me. Just about had wet pants too LOL

Well I'm glad it wasn't me or those "faint black skid marks" probably wouldn't have been on the concrete...............

Our ham radio club had a 180 foot tower on the highest hill around. We had a 2 meter repeater in the shack at the bottom of the tower, and the farmer who owned the property placed his electric fencer inside the shack (convenient). Over a several year period, we had several lightning strikes, and almost every time the farmers fencer was reduced to scattered pieces around the inside of the shack. It would literally blow the fencer case apart, and totally destroy the internal components. Our antenna was placed on the side of the tower at 170 feet, and a business band antenna was at the top. The very worst damage to our equipment was a blown fuse in the power supply, and often the business band equipment was hauled away for a complete rebuild. Each leg of the tower was grounded to an individual ground rod with #6 bare copper wire. The lightning strikes would vaporize the #6 copper ground wire. I'm terrified of lightning, and would never be anywhere near that tower if there was a cloud in the sky.

Paul

In the mid 1980s we where square baling hay and got rained out. The farm we where on used to be a dairy farm. We where inside the old free stall barn just watching it rain, myself and three hired men. Lightning hit the concrete pad two hundred feet from the door way we where standing in. It came across that wet concrete and knocked all of us off our feet and blew the electric plugs and switchs off of the whole barn. I do mean blew off. It exploded every outlet box in the whole building. Never had worried about lightning inside of a building before that, I do now. I have lightning rods on every building I own now.