Lightening experiences anyone got any stories?

[freddo]

A job a number of years ago involved rewiring the telephone cables in a house where the overhead phone lines were struck by lightning. The wiring was all surface and all that remained after the strike was the phone sockets and cable clip nails. The cable had gone leaving just a blast mark all along the walls and skirtings.

A relative also had her house struck by lightning, the cables were damaged as above and the blast also broke a number of the sockets, the house had to be fully rewired.

I was near a tree a few years back that was struck, I would describe the experience as both blinding and deafening. The loudest noise I have ever heard, terrifying but cool at the same time. Parts of the tree trunk had been blown out by the lightning.

 

[Bobster]

I've been out working on a tank farm during a storm, felt all the hairs on my neck an arms stand on end. Quickly hurried myself inside one of the substations close by. Sure enough 2 big lightning strikes hit the lightning rods on the tanks.