OT. Lightning Deaths

[Dean Hoffman]

Stay away from trees and other tall objects during a storm. It's one of those things we have been told maybe dozens of times.

[Ed Pawlowski]

You'd think everyone would know by 10 years old. I like this line: I honestly had no idea standing near a tree during a storm was such a terrible idea, but apparently, it?s well-documented that you shouldn?t do it.

[micky]

One time a group of us were scheduled for a hike in the woods and it was raining. Assume there was also lightning. Is woods with trees all around as dangerous as one tree? Is it more dangerous than a field with no trees?

[Dean Hoffman]

You reminded me of lightning rods. It seemed like every old barn and house had them when I was growing up in the 60s. I guess there were guys who sold them door to door way back when. One of Mike Rowe's episodes of Dirty Jobs showed crews still installing them. Lightning rods are one of those things out in plain sight that I don't see.

I had to repair a bad underground wire for a farmer. He said the old timers told him stories of lightning drilling holes in the ground. Both of us were skeptical. Well, there was a hole in the ground where the wire was broken. The hole stopped at the bad wire. There were maybe a dozen or so burned corn stalks around the hole. I found a similar thing on another job.

[trader_4]

Obviously not, there are trees all over the woods, it could strike any one. If there is only one tree or you're standing in a field, then there is only one object that is higher than the ground, which greatly increases the odds.

[rbowman]

My brother in law won the lightning lottery. He was taking part in an Erie Canal reenactment, stepped out of the tent, and got zapped. Because of the enactment there were EMT's on site but when you're fried you're fried.

About 20 years ago a guy riding a motorcycle got hit. Considering it was eastern Montana he was probably the highest thing around.

[gfretwell]

That is really a toss up. There are enough golfers hit by lightning to say standing out in the open holding a metal stick is pretty dangerous. It is questionable whether actually holding a club is the real source of the danger tho. As for being in the woods, do you feel lucky? Bear in mind once lightning gets in the canopy, there will be multiple paths to ground. There is really no good answer if you get caught outside and can't get to shelter. It is a crap shoot. The best spot is probably in your car or under the roof of a metal car port or other metal building if it is properly grounded.

I have lightning rods here and they have been hit at least twice that I was there to see. Once I was in the driveway. It was exciting. The other time I was in the pool bar. Decent surge protection saved my stuff.

[gfretwell]

FPL did a study on that and the depth that they saw was on the order of 6-8 feet but a lot depends on the soil condition. They do have some interesting Fulgurites from those experiments (fused sand structures). I think it was UCF that worked with them on that

[Clare Snyder]

Ligtning is attracted to high points. Both "high" and "points" being critical. Electron discharge from the earth is easier from a pointed electrode, and the discharge to the clouds will take the shortest possible route - do the Highest" "point". In an open field with one tree, particularly on a rise, that tree will be the most likely strike point - unless a grounded steel post - like an electric fence stake, or even just a steel stake provides a better ballance of conductivity, poityness, and hight. If you are standing in an open field with no trees YOU are the "high" "point" , particulrly if you are wearing a pointy tin foil cap ! A densely forested area is less dangerous, particularly if in a valley of smaller trees surrounfrd by high pointy pine trees on surrounding hills.

[Clare Snyder]

The old farm house my mother grew up in sat alone on a small hill half a mile from the river, with a HUGE oak tree in front and a steel cistern pump on the rear porch and another steel hand-pump for the well in the kitchen. That oak was struck numerous times. The cistern pump also attracted numerous strikes, and at least once the pump was struck and a fireball jumped through the screen door to the aluminum edge trim on the kitchen counter and from there to the old coal cookstove and through the enamel dipper hanging on the sink to the well pump - blasting the enamel off the dipper on the way through. Who knows how many times the lightning rods on both the house and the barn saved them - but Mom used to recall the "fire-balls" bouncing and rolling around the yard in severe thunder storms - and the stench of sulphur. The lighting also occaisionally targetted the burried steel water pipe from the RAM pump down at the swamp/spring up to the barn.

[micky]

Yes. I read many years ago that when Amish Dutch first got lightning rods, they were for some reason breaking off the needle parts and leaving the balls** and I'm guessing the installer wouldn't know this and didn't explain why this was a bad idea until after the first barn fire. (but what I read only said they were for a while breaking them off.)

When I read this I thought it referred to Pennsylvania*** but since then I've learned that because of having children, there are now Amish in farming areas of Florida, which has so much more lightning. So it might have been referring to Florida.

**Do lightning rods still have metal balls? As big as a softball? basketball? ***I lived in Pa. only 10 miles from Ohio and there were Amish there. They came in a buggy delivering eggs and maybe other farm products, but my mother usually had a car and she shopped at the supermarket. (A town of 50,000, even though we lived in the 2nd or 3 residential n'hood from downtown, it was close enough my father walked to took the bus to work, and took the bus or a ride up the steep hill to home, so most days he left her with the car.)

See my reply to Trader. I can't remember the nature of the various area's trees, but if I lose enough weight some day, I may go back and take the same height. I'll try to remember to note this .

This is whwere we were. We parked on the road in the middle, Pa. 233, and were headed to the northwest. This was I guess 25 years ago and when you zoom in there are campgrounds that I'm sure were not there at the time, and I dont think even the reservoir was there. On the other hand, the hostel where I stayed for two nights each of 2 summers, with a group from Pa. is no longer there acc. to the map.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Gettysburg,+PA+17325/@39.9180422,-77.4629972,748m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x89c854bb6968cbb9:0x76e0a9410973efbe!8m2!3d39.8309293!4d-77.2310955?hl=en

[micky]

It was only raining as a drizzle, no lightning yet. I was the day's leader but they (adults, so to speak) insisted on leaving. I guess we went to a museum in Gettysburg, but by then it wasn't even raining. Even I didn't feel like going back to the hike at that point.

Rainy day hikes have the advantage that the rain and the clouds keep you from getting hot.

[micky]

I forgot to say that we were at the very start of the hike, 200 feet from the road, on a short area that is level, but then it climbs to the Appalachian Trail

Then along the trail for a 3 or 4 miles, then down again.

Now I really have to go again, to see if it has changed as much as the map makes it seem. Maybe the small reservoir was there but there were no signs about it.

[Tekkie©]

On Tue, 16 Mar 2021 13:03:15 -0400, [e-mail] posted for all of us to digest...

Did you hear or feel anything? I was in a friends barn, suddenly all the animal started coming in, horses, cats, dogs, etc. WTF A volume level 11 buzz happened and I felt my hair go up. About a second later all the animals went back out.

[Tekkie©]

On Tue, 16 Mar 2021 13:08:08 -0400, [e-mail] posted for all of us to digest...

When I worked on communication towers there was a product called StatiCat IIRC that was used on top of the towers. Looked like an stainless steel? fuzzball umbrella. The towers took A LOT of hits but were grounded and equipment was not damaged.

[micky]

Wow, wow, and wow.

This was also in Ontario?

When I called some lightning hotline, all they seemed to know about was Florida.

[micky]

I thought they were functional but apparently they are only decorative:

But the Amish had been breaking off the needle parts, not the balls afaik.

The site above is in Ohio. Unless there is no need for them there, I think 37 years when I looked into this, a lightning or rod phone number that portrayed itself as national was really just Florida.

I was misled: 2019 Texas: 16,032,609. Kansas: 8,299,321. Nebraska: 6,166,469. Oklahoma: 6,039,749. Florida: 5,271,987. Missouri: 4,612,813. South Dakota: 3,706,174. Iowa: 3,603,519. Colorado: 3,499,283 New Mexico: 3,436,976

[gfretwell]

I did the inspections on a bunch of those towers, the ones for the 911 boxes on I-75 and some at the prisons. The grounding of a radio tower is massive. They have a big concrete encased electrode in the tower base. Then they run 2ga copper radials out to every guy wire anchor, tied to the rebar cage and run a buried ground ring around the whole thing. They also drive a bunch of 40' rods. The only other thing I have see that was even close was a toll complex. I did MM99 on I-75. Most of what makes one of those things work is underground, like 8 feet underground and the grounding is extensive. I hung around to watch the CadWeld shots when that guy came out. It was like the 4th of July, in a close to the ground sort of way. r

[gfretwell]

That is because we get more lightning than any other state. Much more than most. I have "Flash Bang" lightning here at least once a week in the summer and sometimes it is multiple strikes in a 15 or 20 minute period.

[Clare Snyder]

Yup - up here in "thunder alley"