My lightning experience...
I was about 15 when I went to visit a friend in Texas over the Summer. July in Texas can be considered a tad warm. *Cough* Anyway, Summer storms are common & they tend to be full of lightning strikes.
My friend & I are sitting in his living room watching the storm out his front window when lightning strikes the foreclosed house across the street. Retina-searing flash of light, eardrum-shredding detonation of sound, and then the place exploded. Wood & glass in a cloud of shrapnel, a fireball curling out from beneath the edges of the newly lifted-free roof, and smoke like Satan had farted in multiple jets towards the sky.
We hit the floor, his window sprays our backs, & the living room gets showered in glass powder, wood pulp, & rain blowing in through the very large hole.
His mom comes running down the stairs to check on us just as we're extracting ourselves from beneath the layers of debris. At first we couldn't hear her shouting at us, but eventually our ears stopped ringing enough to make out the gist.
The house across the street did *not* have the lightning rod on the roof, fat copper cable down the side, Earth spike burried in the dirt to channel such strikes. The bolt had hit the tv antenna, gone down through the electrical wiring, sparked off the gas line, and poof went the whole thing.
We nailed up wood to cover his broken window, swept up all the crap, & did something I later learned was so rare in Texas that it was a small miracle that their home even had the needed infrastructure: they turned the HEAT on to help dry out the living room.
The carpet & furniture was dry by morning, our hearing had returned, and his mom finally stopped claiming it was all *MY* fault somehow. "$Shadow, it can't be coincidence that you come to visit & Mother Nature picks that time to try & smite your ass. I should make you sit outside for the next one."
I offered to sit on her car if she did, so she decided to let me stay indoors. =-)p
I had already had a huge respect for thunder & lightning storms before, but after that event, you couldn't drag me outside during one with a team of horses & an over-powered cattle prod. Nope-a Nope-a NOPE!
*Runs & hides under the bed hoping Mother Nature can't get me*
Biting the hand that feeds IT
