[TheForge] Weathervanes and Lightening

[Andy Vida]

James Binnion wrote:
> 
> If there is a direct strike the ground wire will not do any good as
> it will vaporize. Antenna towers and the like are grounded to reduce
> the damage from a near by strike. There are huge currents generated
> all around a strike and metallic objects will have those currents
> flowing through them and you will get all kinds of secondary arcs and
> associated damage from these currents. There isn't anything you can
> realistically do to mitigate the damage from direct strikes the
> currents are just too huge.

	Lightning is some weird stuff.  Butthole's house was stricken
	about 6 years ago.  He and his wife were asleep when suddenly
	KA - *BOOM*.  Their antenna tower was hit, then jumped to the
	side of the house and blew a THREE foot diameter hole through
	the exterior wall, blowing them both out of bed.  One of the
	cats wound up cinged to a crew cut all over its body.  I showed
	up a couple days later and had I not seen the hole with my own
	eyes, I'm not sure I would have believed it.  They were told
	that it's something of a small miracle nobody was killed.  They
	told me the light was so bright that they thought the second
	coming was occuring right there in their bedroom.

	There ain't much that scares me, but lightning turns me
	sheet-white.  I learned how to teleport from my back porch
	to the middle of my living room in what seemed under one
	second when lighning struck my back yard, not 30 feet from
	where I stood.  My hair was literally standing straight up,
	I was so scared.  To get the the living room you have to go
	though the porch, a 20' square kitchen, and a short hallway.
	I moved like an olympic athlete that day.