On 18 July, 19:21, (Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

Out of interest,
Where you there when it happened?
What's the state of their house now?

--
Andrew Gabriel

I was in at the time and there was an almighty bang, but I didn't hear
any falling masonry, and didn't know where the hit was. I was then
waylaid as the strike had destroyed my router, desktop PC and anything
attached to it like a printer etc, I was listening to test match
special via a PVR and stereo, both of which went phut along with my
telephone line. It was only when I took the dog out later that I saw
the damage.

The house next door (1993 build) has a chimney pot perched
precariously against the remains of the stack. Large pieces of masonry
were thrown as far as the bottom of their garden, about 40 feet.
Lightning entered the roofspace breaking and scorching a truss and
then found the loft aerial and made its way to earth. A blanking plate
on a back box was blown off, and the filter on the phone master socket
was blown apart.

They have no electrics except one socket, which is not RCD protected.
We have changed the RCD, but it still trips when any load is drawn (it
can support a low energy bedside lamp), so this is a wait for the
electrician, and looks like a nasty job.

Insurance company said someone would be out Friday night but still no
one as of now. Fire brigade car attended to advise on the safety of
the stack.

Location is Cambridgeshire.

A mate of mine rang me from the London-Wakefield train at the time to
ask me about the storm, as he was crawling from signal to signal
between Sandy and St Neots - but my phone was out of action!

In the vein of UK-DIY I was able to restore phone service temporarily
by replacing the master socket as BT can't come till Monday pm. The
lightning protectors in the master socket was obviously overwhelmed
(Overhead feed).


John