Comment Nasty Lightning Strike With Photo Gallery (Score 5, Interesting) 285
About two weeks ago, during an after-school rehearsal of Macbeth, we heard a sharp clap of thunder as the three witches were reciting "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble....". We were startled at first yet were quickly amused at its timing. One of the actors emerged from the dressing room quite pale and said he saw a flash of light streak along one of the walls.
After the rehearsal, I returned to the computer lab, sat down at my PC, and noticed that it was powered down... and it wouldn't power up. I wandered into our LAN/Server/Broom/Tool/Ex-Bathroom closet and discovered that 2 servers, 4 PCs, our SDSL router, our 24-port Switch, and the Ethernet port on the motherboard of 10 new PCs were all dead. The PCI NIC in my PC had a crater in it. Our PBX was toast and the 25 and 50-pair phone cables between buildings were severely damaged as well..
If you'd like to see a short Flash-enabled gallery of the destruction, go here As usual, click on a thumbnail to see a larger image.
A company that is no longer in business installed our punch-down blocks, and they grounded the blocks to a faucet attached to a copper pipe. The person who did the plumbing on the building said that the copper pipe does not travel far before it continues its run as a PVC pipe. The cable and punch-down block installer did not use a true power ground with a 6-ft spike in the ground. We did have lightning arresters on the blocks, but I found the one connected to our SDSL line charred on the floor. It got blown off the wall (one million volts, 200,000 Amps coming through!) The surge traveled over our data network, not through the AC power supplies.
I've also been looking at web sites that indicate that there's no conclusive proof that lighting rods are effective deterrents even though they're recommended in many building codes.
Having fun in Austin,
A Chief Technical Agonizer
p.s. We discovered today that the light board in our auditorium also got nailed. It's like "Close Encounters" in there without the tones, but then again, we haven't fully tested the sound board yet. Who knows what we'll find tomorrow !!!
After the rehearsal, I returned to the computer lab, sat down at my PC, and noticed that it was powered down... and it wouldn't power up. I wandered into our LAN/Server/Broom/Tool/Ex-Bathroom closet and discovered that 2 servers, 4 PCs, our SDSL router, our 24-port Switch, and the Ethernet port on the motherboard of 10 new PCs were all dead. The PCI NIC in my PC had a crater in it. Our PBX was toast and the 25 and 50-pair phone cables between buildings were severely damaged as well..
If you'd like to see a short Flash-enabled gallery of the destruction, go here As usual, click on a thumbnail to see a larger image.
A company that is no longer in business installed our punch-down blocks, and they grounded the blocks to a faucet attached to a copper pipe. The person who did the plumbing on the building said that the copper pipe does not travel far before it continues its run as a PVC pipe. The cable and punch-down block installer did not use a true power ground with a 6-ft spike in the ground. We did have lightning arresters on the blocks, but I found the one connected to our SDSL line charred on the floor. It got blown off the wall (one million volts, 200,000 Amps coming through!) The surge traveled over our data network, not through the AC power supplies.
I've also been looking at web sites that indicate that there's no conclusive proof that lighting rods are effective deterrents even though they're recommended in many building codes.
Having fun in Austin,
A Chief Technical Agonizer
p.s. We discovered today that the light board in our auditorium also got nailed. It's like "Close Encounters" in there without the tones, but then again, we haven't fully tested the sound board yet. Who knows what we'll find tomorrow !!!
