Boom Town

When a tremendous “Boom!” jarred longtime Texas Farm Bureau members Bill and Sandy Goforth awake at 2 a.m. on a Sunday last year, they weren’t sure what had happened.

“All these alarms started going off,” Bill recalls. When he headed into the living room to investigate, he saw smoke streaming down the stairs from the second floor.

“I could see flames coming out of the exhaust fan in the upstairs bathroom, but I couldn’t go up there to save anything because the smoke was so bad,” he explains. That’s when the Goforths realized lightning had struck the roof of their Lantana home. Those alarms were the couple’s smoke detectors doing their job.

Six minutes later, the Argyle Fire Department arrived. The blaze completely consumed the upstairs portion of the Goforths’ home; firefighters were able to save the downstairs, but not before it incurred significant damage. The devastated upstairs plumbing resulted in substantial water damage to the ground floor, and when the lightning’s current traveled through the home it wiped out the electrical wiring. “To give you an example of how much it traveled, the GFCI [ground fault circuit interrupter] outlet in the kitchen was covered with black burn marks,” Bill says.

Personal Safety

In the sky, lightning begins as an invisible collection of positively charged ions. When the ions leave the cloud they head for the ground, attracted by the negatively charged ions harbored there. As the positive ions draw closer, the negatively charged ions rise up to meet them. The result? An interchange that creates a visible cloud-to-ground lightning strike.

The Lone Star State experiences more cloud-to-ground lightning flashes annually than any of the 48 states in the continental U.S. In 2014 alone, lightning struck Texas nearly 2.7 million times! Thankfully, the majority of strikes don’t make contact with humans, pets, livestock, or structures, but with an average 10.7 lightning strikes per square mile, and $60 million in property damage statewide in 2014, why take chances?

One of the best ways to play it safe is to heed these wise words from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association: When thunder roars, head indoors.

“Simply put, if you can hear thunder you’re not safe,” cautions Mark Fox, a DFW Metroplex-based meteorologist with the National Weather Service. If you are caught outdoors, don’t seek safety under a tree; that’s proven one of the most dangerous spots. Other precautions include staying off landline phones (except in emergencies), not using your cell phone if it’s plugged into a charger, and avoiding running water because it conducts electricity.

If you rely on a satellite dish or similar system for television viewing or Internet usage, Fox recommends having a plan B for keeping tabs on the weather in case it goes down. “It’s not uncommon to lose TV and Internet service during storms. Broadcast towers, antennas, and tall buildings, like downtown high-rises, get hit the most,” he says. Does that mean living in a two- or three-story house increases your odds of being struck? Fox says theoretically, no. “There wouldn’t be enough height difference between that and a one-story structure to make much difference.”

Whole-Home Protection

When lightning’s powerful current zips through electrical lines, even if your residence isn’t struck directly, your home wiring and expensive electronics could still incur damage from the resulting surge. In fact, the direct strike experienced by the Goforths is actually one of the least common causes of property damage from lightning. More often, lightning wreaks havoc when the pulse from a strike elsewhere journeys through soil to underground cables and pipes, and then to equipment inside and outside your home.

To deter surges from entering your home, install a suppression unit at each electrical panel. Similarly, adding arrestors to the panels provides additional protection for heavy appliances. Both precautions reduce the risk of fire caused by a powerful flood of electricity. (Remember the Goforths’ kitchen outlet?) Inside your home, unplug electronics at the first sign of a thunderstorm to keep them from being “fried.” That includes Internet and satellite-dish connections. What if you’re not home when a storm hits? Fox advises using surge suppressors tested and labeled by Underwriters Laboratories, especially for big-ticket items.

One of the best investments you can make to protect your home from lightning strikes is to install a lightning protection system. Such systems are designed to force lightning’s discharge to a specified path, a technology that’s been around since the days of Benjamin Franklin. The nonprofit Missouri-based Lightning Protection Institute explains the idea is to eliminate the chance of fire or explosion within nonconductive parts of the house (e.g., wood, tile, brick, etc.).

In recent decades, the number of homeowners installing lightning protection systems has risen. Proliferation of underground utilities, an increase in the cost of home electronics — think of the many refrigerators now with high-end LED touchscreens — and growing knowledge of the option have all contributed to the increase. But, Fox warns, “Don’t install a system yourself. Instead, have a licensed contractor do it.” Indeed, an improperly installed system might be as effective as no system at all.

Lightning protection systems begin with what we commonly call “lightning rods,” copper or aluminum rods atop the roof designed to deflect strikes. Today, lightning protection professionals refer to them as “air terminals.” In addition, they are connected through braided cables to poles sunk at least 10 feet into the ground. Finally, bonding metal roof joints and other components ensure conductivity along the chosen path and help prevent side flashing (when lightning jumps from one object to another).

Lightning protection systems are designed to route currents safely to the ground, but they won’t prevent a strike. Nothing can do that. That’s one reason Bill Goforth tells other homeowners, “Make sure you have good insurance!”

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