On Saturday, March 7, 2015 at 1:10:45 AM UTC-5, Clare wrote:
On Fri, 06 Mar 2015 22:58:04 -0600, Martin Eastburn
wrote:

I had a friend in the Dallas area that had a heavy hit - very strong -
come down and burn the side of his house at the utility lead.
It killed every electrical or electronic item that was attached to
the wall or power...

His insurance man laughed at first - until he started making a list.

Martin

On 3/6/2015 12:08 PM, Leon Fisk wrote:
On Thu, 5 Mar 2015 17:38:21 -0500
"Jim Wilkins" wrote:

snip
I grouped the devices that most need isolation into one coax panel for
outdoor antennas and cameras and two accessible outlet strips, one for
the stereo rack and the other for the computer bench, so I can react
quickly to thunder.
-jsw

In the day... I used an heavy on/off switch in a handy box mounted
underneath my workbench. Normally I would just turn off the switch and
that would kill power to everything at my workbench. That box had a
cord that was simply plugged into the wall. If I had even a hint of bad
weather coming I would pull the wall plug too, along with all the RJ-11
plugs to the phone lines.

Even during good times it was handy. If there was a power hiccup I
could quickly kill everything at my bench until I knew for sure it was
backup and stabilized again.

I remember reading an article in a trade magazine once. About a company
that made a power disconnect controlled by an AM radio tuned to detect
the static created by lightning activity. It would disconnect all power
connections at said location and shunt them to ground until the detector
registered that the storm had passed. I really liked that idea but
never saw anything advertised/produced for it...

That's why I LOVE underground electrical distribution. Storms don't
take down the lines, and lighting can't find the wires to deliver a
direct hit.

Bullcrap. There are plenty of times that underground cables were struck by lighting, too. Lloyd should just tell the power company to put surge arrestors in before service is supplied to the property.