[TheForge] lightning

[Andrew Vida]

The closest to me that lightning ever struck was about 30 or 40 feet.  I 
was standing in the doorway of my back porch in NJ and suddenly, and I 
mean as in "no memory of intervening time", I found myself standing in 
the middle of my living room as if having moved by teleportation, my 
hair standing just about straight up.  I remember a blinding flash, an d 
ear splitting crack, and then the living room appearing before my eyes, 
nothing between.  An interesting experience I have no desire ever to repeat.

Down in south Jersey, my friends Brent and his wife were in bed when 
lightning struck the house not 3 feet from the foot of the bed.  Blew a 
2' diameter hole in the exterior wall.  They said it sounded like a bomb 
had gone off in the room.

Kim George wrote:
> This came from a long way away. For the closer hits we depend on the
> lightning rods.Most people don't think of them any more but they're
> the best protection.
>