In article .com,
hobbes wrote:

On Aug 16, 4:39 am, wrote:
A couple nights ago we had a really bad storm. Five inches of rain in
an hour. I now have ruts all over the place. But that's not why I'm
posting. During the storm I unplugged everything because the
lightning was really bad. I only things I left turned on were a few
lights, a window fan, and my battery operated weather radio. The
power went of several times, but it would come back on in less than a
minute. This is pretty normal, especially out here in the country.
Generally a bright and close flash of lightning will cause this. All
of a sudden there was another very bright flash of lightning, and the
lights went out, but this time when they came back on, the bulbs were
barely lit. Just a dull glow, as if they were getting half or less
voltage. These are common incadesant bulbs, not CF bulbs. They
remained in this barely on state for maybe a half minute, and the fan
motor had a noticable hum. Then they came back on to normal
brightness.

I can understand the power going totally off, and know the power
company has resets on poles and such, but why did I get this half
power thing? I'm glad I unplugged the electronics or I might be
replacing lots of stuff.

I know someone is going to ask, so I have 120/240 single phase in the
house. This was not something just in my house, both my, and my
neighbors yard lights went out.

This I think is commonly called a "Brown Out". The power station
cannot supply sufficient voltage, so basically instead of seeing 120v
you may be seeing say 40 volts only. Hence everything is sort of dim.

best, Mike.

I'll second that and add that electric motors don't like low voltage. So
next time, unplug the fan, and especially the refrigerator. Campgrounds
for motorhomes are famous for being ill-equipped to supply sufficient
power for the number of guests; as a result, voltage drops, and the
refrigerator motors all burn out.