KA-BOOM!!! The neighborhood went black. I was sitting at the pc and jumped two feet when house shook and went pitch black. A lightning strike hit a transformer with a force that had to be heard and felt to be believed. We have several utility management people in our neighborhood and they all said they

 

Good thing no one was hurt!

If you are online, I take it everything is back to normal today.

 

Yep, the electrician is at the neighbor's this AM and repairs have started. I don't think they will need the gas today as it's going to hit near 90 degrees.

 

sounds like you were lucky that your equipment survived.

I'd go through the house and check ALL of your electronic devices today.

There's nothing quite like the sound of a really close lightning strike.
The kind where you see, hear and feel it all at the same time.

 

Many years ago, we were at a summer cottage on a pond. Down near the pond, they had a little gazebo type of structure with chairs and a swing.

We were watching lighting ACROSS the pond, and all of a sudden, the loudest crack I had ever heard. All of a sudden my sister is saying she can't feel her legs..

It's been so long, I can't remember the path of the lightening. I think my sister was leaning against a wood railing and the lighting hit the ground behind her.

We got my sister back to the house, and she had what looked like football stitching on the back of her legs, but no other issues. The feeling came back to her legs a short time later, but it took a while for the marks to go away. What an experience! Needless to say, she does not like thunderstorms to this day.

 

All my neighbors said the entire woods around our houses lite up.... I'll have to take their word for it, as I wasn't near any open windows. I was glad my new plasma tv was off but everything seems fine. I made sure my pc was turned off in case of a power surge when the juice came back.

 

Turns out the strike took out two transformers, one across the street from our house and one four houses away. It energized the ground between them to the extent one of my neighbors had sparks flying off his hands when he went to close the dryer door after the blast.

 

When I was a kid, lightning struck the ground between my parents house and my neighbors house. It was the loudest crack of thunder I have ever heard.

The interesting thing is that my mother had a silver tea service sitting out on the dining room side table and lightning was dancing around the tea service after the lightning strike.

 

Holy cow Dave, as others have said, I'm glad you and the house and contents are ok! Sounds like that strike could have gotten much worse.




This happened to me just once, I was in high school at the time. Like Dave, I remember jumping nearly out of my skin.

 

Just 4 months ago, at 2 am, a huge boom woke us up. Didn't see lightning, and there were no other strikes or thunder all night long. But our power was off. In the am, I talked to neighbors and their power was on. Their power poles were before ours (our pole terminates at our house) so i couldn't figure it out. There were 4 transformers that blew out at the ends of runs, and ours was one of them. At 1 am the next morning the power company had a ladder truck the size of Cleveland in our drive, putting in a new transformer.