Lightning Safety

By Debbie Williams

Published: Mon, July 16, 2007 - 6:07 am
Last Updated: Tue, July 31, 2007 - 7:32 pm

We've seen a lot of them the last couple of weeks; thunderstorms have brought a lot of beneficial rain, a lot of lightning and a lot of business to electronic repair stores.

Almost like clock work, they blow across the sky and where there is thunder, there is always lightning. So far, that's meant a lot of business for Carl Gates. "This is usually what goes first this goes right here and this is where you plug it into the wall that's the biggest thing. Quick and easy fix lot easier than the motherboard."

David Horton with Riviera Utilities says protecting your home from lightning also helps the power company. "The more you have off when we do have an outage and when we bring it back on the less surge we have on our system."

While lightning is the most dangerous part of a storm, it doesn't necessarily damage your electronics, unless of course you take a direct hit. What causes the most damage in a storm is what you may have already lost according to Gates. "If you don't have adequate protection and power goes down you want to make sure you run around and unplug as much stuff as you can...lots of times it will try coming back up and down and up and down and that will fry some electronics."

There are all kinds of products to help protect your electronics, battery back-ups, "It will also keep your system up long enough for you to gracefully shut it down if you have a power outage or power spikes," says Gates and he says something every home should have. "Some kind of suppression especially if you have high dollar electronics plasma TV such as that."

Summer thunderstorms don't have to be an exercise in shock therapy if you take the proper precautions.

Other tips to keep you safe during a thunderstorm stay away from windows, doors and open garages. Don't use phones with a cord and unplug all major appliances including air conditioners.

Lightning can enter the house through electrical, telephone and plumping connections.

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