Saturday, August 15, 2020

AFTER the FIREBALL and BOOM

What seemed like a rather mild rain storm came thru here Wednesday afternoon.  Weather channel and my iPad alert system did say rain in the forecast but the ironic thing is that AFTER the lightening strike I received an audio alert for "Severe Thunderstorms".  Hell, that happened a few minutes ago!!!!

All appeared to be a normal rain with thunder in neighboring towns and didn't look threatening outside.  The photo below isn't my house but I do live in the woods and NO, none of my trees show burn or split marks from a direct hit.
What I saw (as explained in my previous post) was a ball of fire, flames shooting up from the propane gas logs in  my living room, sparks from the gcfi wall unit in the kitchen, smoke, etc. 

The electrician came out yesterday and here were the repairs made by him:  Replacement of one circuit breaker which had the wires soldered together from the electrical current going thru the box.  A total of 4 gfis were replace (the ground wall units with the reset), that is what is to protect the house from an electrical surge.  Yeah, it did its job BUT......

Thank goodness the heat-pump is still alive and that would have been the most expensive replacement.  As I had no TV, no phone or internet service thought all were lost.  

Comcast came today and discovered the lightening burned out the X1 VCR, another small box for kitchen TV and the TV upstairs in the sewing room is dead.  The only phone service I have is Comcast voice but only to or from those folks who have an Apple product.  

YES, I have a cell phone but is a flip phone and doesn't get reception when there are leaves on the trees.  Even the cable man couldn't get good reception when he was troubleshooting my equipment.   So now need to figure out what to do about phones.

Until this afternoon I was watching TV on my red iPad and talking to my son.  The ancient black iPad below that is what I use to host pictures of rugs I'm hooking.  There is a printed picture of the antique rug among the worms on my sofa but like to refer to a photo on the iPad for better clarification.
When the electrician was here I said, "I never want to go thru another experience like that ever again".  He turned around, looked at me and said..."hate to tell you this, but you will be hit again".  So despite that old saying that "lightening never strikes twice" is wrong.

He used terminology I didn't understand but I'll give you an example that as a rug hooker you will understand.  Ya know how we keep our scissors on a magnet so they don't get lost?  Did you ever notice they attach themselves to straight pins and other metal objects?  Those scissors have been magnetized just as my house has been.  So it will be the path of least resistance in future strikes.

Is anyone's husband an electrician and can ask him a question??  Yesterday's electrician said I could reduce the chance of getting another strike by having an "ELECTRICAL GROUND LOOP" installed.  Supposedly that is to re-direct the positive from the negative and back out or whatever he said.  So let me know if I should have that done or if it isn't worth the cost.

Guess I've lost a lot of my readers before you got here, lol.

Happy hooking.

Saundra



9 comments:

  1. wow how awful and expensive. I hope you get a phone soon I do not like being without
    one. We were hit about 30 years ago it split a big pine followed the roots to our well killed the pump and into the house split the side of the house wide open shot nails out into the driveway and made every pipe in the house ring. He have had some storms since and knock on wood we have not gotten it again.
    I have no idea about that loop. hope you get an answer.
    Cathy

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  2. Yikes.... So glad it wasn't worse...but dang, that's bad enough. (Frankly, I am amazed you got such quick response from your electrician and Comcast. I took me 4 months (and countless frustrating phone calls) to get Frontier to come out and fix our land line at the lake.... For 4 months I had a cord running from the outside telephone box, up the front stairs, through the front doors, through the foyer, the bar, the living room and kitchen to the nearest phone jack. Grrrrr.... Hope they're wrong about being a lightening target....but, sorry, no help on the electrical ground loop. ~Robin~

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  3. We had a pole placed...looks like a flag pole in a corner of the yard. We are on a peninsula at the end of an island. Reception on cell and land line is always sketchy at best. However the first hit created a fire. Luckily we were there and could start right away to get it out out. The pole has taken many hits over the yrs due to the severity of storms...even in Maine.
    Its worth the investment. Next time you may not be so lucky.
    Best of luck!

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  4. Yikes,,,,
    That a lot of information you never thought u would have to Know! M9st of the words are foreign to me,,,,,
    As I type this we have lightning and thunder,,,,,storm is coming,,,,
    Going to rain here most of day,,,
    You had repair people fast!
    I 😣thought we were the only ones with old flip phones!!!
    Take good care,,,,

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  5. You’d think you could have any vestiges of current de-magnetized. I’d say you were pretty blessed with the damages. Not too bad.

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  6. Wow !!! Do they still have lightening rods ? Many people long ago would have those on their roofs & barns .....
    You were very lucky , but what a job & headache to get everything fixed. My son -in-law still has a flip phone , he is a school teacher & isn't able to do group texts ....he's a young man & boy is he get teased . LOL

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  7. I, too, am surprised how quickly you had repair people to the house.
    What a mess, but thankful for you that it wasn't worse.

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  8. I’m so sorry you went through that, Saundra! So glad you are ok. I hope you never get hit again. Hugs, Lori

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Thanks for taking the time to visit and I always welcome comments.