Mr Trump? Is that you?

A long time ago, Jerry Pournelle wrote in Byte Magazine to describe his experience with a destructive power event.

As I recall, he wrote that a car struck a power pole somewhere down the road, and dropped the 30,000 volt lines down onto the residential 220 volt lines, resulting in the (normally) 110 volt wiring in his home being briefly charged to 15,000 volts.

He wrote that the lights went out, then came back on REALLY BRIGHT, then went out again and stayed out.

I do not remember all of the details of his equipment, but I do remember that he had a variety of spike and surge suppressors, ranging from a $5 el-cheapo unit up to some fairly expensive protection.

End result: NO piece of equipment that had ANY kind of protection was harmed. The only piece of gear that was hurt (a VCR, I think) was plugged directly into the wall.

My recommendation: put whatever suppression you can comfortably afford on every piece of hardware that is valuable to you. After an "event" of any severity, replace them. For the most part, you have no way to know whether they are still working.