Severe Weather

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

Thunderstorm blew through Columbus, Nebraska yesterday evening and we have lots of property damage from falling trees. Several newer vehicles have caved in roofs. High winds blew over several semis. House about eight blocks west of us was hit by lightning and attic set on fire. We have an excellent power grid and the lights were out for only a minute or so from tree falling on power line. It never ceases to amaze me that the power grid can function in such extreme weather. All REA. No IOUs in Nebraska. People are out this AM helping neighbors clean up fallen limbs. Nebraska may be the simple rural life but one can always be certain that people will be there to help when disaster strikes.

 

[AlaskaMike]

A lot of the issue with lightning and the power grid is that power companies are generally well familiar with proper grounding techniques, so strikes have much less effect on them vs. the average home. Unfortunately most homes aren't properly grounded to handle even a nearby strike, let alone a direct strike.

If you haven't done so, go look at every utility that connects to your house--telephone, cable tv, electrical, etc. They all need to be grounded, and they all need to be tied to the same ground. Typically that's a single ground rod by the outside electrical panel, or a cold water pipe. Unfortunately it's not uncommon at all to see cable or satellite tv installations that are completely ungrounded, or improperly grounded (for example, grounded to its own ground rod which isn't bonded to the electrical panel ground--that's a big no-no).

Working in the telecom industry I get to see up close how cell and other radio towers are grounded. Those towers are designed to operate 24/7/365, regardless of nearby or direct lightning strikes. They usually have multiple ground rods at each tower leg, and there are ground bus bars at the cable entrance to the building (sometimes both outside and inside). It's all about bleeding off the lightning energy and shunting it to ground before it can do any damage.

 

[AlaskaMike]

Sorry, I kinda got caught up there yammering about lightning and grounding stuff.

Hope nobody was hurt during the storm, and it's great to hear that neighbors are helping each other out.