House getting struck by lighting?

Question

I have a bad fear of thunderstorms and people always told me oh you dont have to be afraid if your inside so i thought ok, but recently i have been hearing alot about houses getting struck by lighting i was never afraid of thunderstorms because i thought that lighting was going to strike the house i was more scared of the noise and twisters

now i dont feel safe in my house what should i do?

Answer 1

Ha, Hide in your car. A house down the rode got struck by lightning last year, it hit the propane tank and it blew up.

Answer 2

if lightning strikes your house, you are going to be fine. as long as you are not using an electronic appliance or using the bathtub/ shower. sure, a fire may very well start. but thats the worst thing that would happen.

Answer 3

If you have a lightning rod or a system that grounds lightning you should not worry. We have some kind of surge suppressor on the whole house. Still you should not stand next to attached telephones, open windows, TVs or other electronic equipment that is plugged in while lightning is very intense. Make sure your computer is either unplugged or shielded especially for this and if you have a dail-up modem disconnect it. Cable is fine.  We had a bad storm once that took out a computer and fax through phone lines. get yourself a weather alert radio, so you can get warnings for twisters if you live in an area where they are frequent.

Answer 4

anything can get hit by lightning, however it usually depends on the height of the object.  The taller the object, the more likely it is to get hit, which is why most skyscrapers have lightning rods.

That being said, in many neighborhoods houses and trees are the tallest objects around.  It's also sometimes just the luck of the draw.  Just today in Massachusetts (where I live) two houses were struck in the same neighborhood, causing fires.  Just last week 10 people were injured in part of Boston when the tree they were standing under was struck.

However, if you're worried about being electrocuted if lightning strikes your house, you don't have to worry.  The primary threat of lightning strikes to houses (especially ones made of wood) is fire.

Don't worry, you're not alone.  There have been severe storms rolling through my area all day, and now they're going to be rolling through all night, and all of tomorrow.  I'm not going to go to sleep, because I am a very anxious person and my number 1 fear is tornadoes.

Answer 5

You are safe in your house.  Houses are designed with the possibility of lightening strikes in mind.  I will relay a personal first hand account of a lightening strike on my mother's house in Delaware.  The lightening struck a metal basketball set up in the driveway and shot across to the central air conditioning system  It traveled to the electrical service panel before grounding out.

Inside the house we heard a huge bang like a cannon shot and an enormous bluish flash.  The lights went out and the air smelled of ozone.  I grabbed a flashlight and ran down to the service panel.  There was a light sort of smoke in the air near it.  I opened it and found the main breaker had tripped.  This protected the house electrical system.  Once the overloaded breaker tripped the lightening followed the grounding wire out into the ground.  The only damage was a ruined air conditioning compressor and the grounding wire was history.

I replace the grounding wire but everything else was unaffected.

That is what happens in a home that is properly wired during an lightening strike.  No one and nothing else was affected.

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