What a fright I got.

[Nerys Ghemor]

Not exactly sure what happened with that dream. I'm a fairly light sleeper, so that's entirely possible I heard the storm approaching as I dreamed.

Yet another storm experience...I work in retail, and we have a very sensitive automatic door. I do my best to avoid setting the thing off and causing the little "we have customers!" beep, but sometimes it just opens anyway.

I was walking past the door once during a pretty active storm. So that damned door opened, and of course...

FLASHBOOM!

Believe me, that's in bold for a reason. It was just about deafening. It shook the inside of the store!

And if I hadn't gone walking past that door at the wrong moment, needless to say that wouldn't have been nearly as bad as it was. Boy, was I ever embarrassed...

 

[Philo]

Our house was struck by lightning when I was kid. I thought it was a bomb or something. A few years later, I was looking out a window and saw lightning strike the ground ten feet in front of me. I wrote a detailed description of those and some other experiences with lightning in another thread not that long ago.

 

[the Dagman]

September 24, 2001 7:24pm PDT.

That's the date and time that I was actually struck by lightning. I suppose there was a thunderclap that followed it. Frankly, I was in too much pain at the time to notice. I used to love thunderstorms before that. Now, not so much. I would likely be dead now if it weren't for my lucky belt buckle and a metal retractable keyring attached to my belt in combination with rubber soled shoes. The bolt arced through the buckle and keyring, avoiding all my vital organs. I stayed conscious even as I doubled over and hit the ground in agony. It was all I could do to get to my feet and into my apartment. You can't have a closer call than that.

 

[Philo]

I do know. In fact, it was a little hard for me to read that. A friend of mine in high school was struck by lightning and killed. I'm therefore especially thankful you were okay.

 

[ria 75]

I was actually struck by lightning. I would likely be dead now if it weren't for my lucky belt buckle and a metal retractable keyring attached to my belt in combination with rubber soled shoes. The bolt arced through the buckle and keyring, avoiding all my vital organs.

Could the bolt have been attracted in the first place by your belt buckle and key ring? I'm not sure what the rules of nature are here.

 

[the Dagman]

I was actually struck by lightning. I would likely be dead now if it weren't for my lucky belt buckle and a metal retractable keyring attached to my belt in combination with rubber soled shoes. The bolt arced through the buckle and keyring, avoiding all my vital organs.

Could the bolt have been attracted in the first place by your belt buckle and key ring? I'm not sure what the rules of nature are here.

It is possible that it was. There were several other metallic objects nearby, most that stood taller than me. I would have thought they would have acted as a lightning rod and protected me. There were just too many bolts flying that night I suppose.

 

[ria 75]

^^Oh, so there's also a random component in addition to the things that attract lightning.

 

[Philo]

Yes. When I saw that lightning bolt strike the ground, it was attracted to a buried telephone wire. There were far more obvious targets around than that (including our TV antenna which had been hit a few years earlier).

 

[ria 75]

Facts: 2000 (lightning) stoms / 5 million lightning bolts in the world every day.
Nice yucca tree in this picture taken in California.

 

[MANT!]

Had a charcoal grill get struck by lightning..while we had steaks on..about 40 feet away..the rain was very hard so we retired indoors and went out every 5 minutes to turn the steaks..then a flash of light and BLAM!!! welded the damn lid shut..was out there with a sledge hammer getting the damn thing open trying to save the food...(and yes lightning was still going on while we did that...)

 

[Miss Chicken]

^^^ If that lightning had struck and killed you you would have won a Darwin Award (unless you already had children at the time).

 

[An Officer]

Steaks are just that good.

Now here's a unique selling point: not flame grilled, but LIGHTENING grilled.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

My worst storm experience in recent years was the one we had five months ago. I'll remember that shit for the rest of my life...June 27, 2008. The day from hell.

The actual storm only lasted about five minutes. But it was enough. Wind gusts up to 80 MPH. Half the trees in the city came down, I think. It was like a warzone in my neighborhood...I remember driving home that night and feeling the most unbelievable dread imaginable. I knew my power would be out, but I had no idea how much damage there'd be. Most of the streets in my area were impassable. Trees down EVERYWHERE. Including my own yard...one tree came down in the front (and took out a chunk of my house), while the tree in the back came down across power and cable lines. So my power was out for 4 days, and cable/TV/internet for two more.

Driving was a nightmare. It took me almost an hour to drive across town so I could check on my parents. I'm surprised I didn't get hit.

Of course, anyone who was in Omaha in 1975 will remember the one-two punch we got that year. In January, a snowstorm that dumped so much snow on us that it came up to waist level in some parts (cars were completely buried as well). Then, a few months later, we had the Tornado of 1975. That time, our house didn't get hit (the tornado wasn't in our area), and I was too young to understand what was going on anyway.