There’s nothing wrong with being cautionary; I’m ultra-cautious myself, being about the last Republican in Nebraska to dump Hagel, for example, because I want to be sure a ship’s sinking before I abandon it.
Nebraska, being sparsely populated outside of Omaha and Lincoln, is served by mom-and-pop telephone companies, because during the heyday of the old AT&T, it wasn’t considered a big enough of a “market” for that giant to serve.
These small businesses of course have expanded over the years, from telephones into cable television and internet service.
They find that telephone, television, and internet usage actually spikes—and quite a bit—during thunderstorms, even though in theory and on paper, it should evaporate, as your own experiences and observations have shown.
Life, as you know, is if nothing else, chance and luck, despite all “plans,” “precautions,” and well-thought-out procedures. This in fact is one of the basic tenets of Christianity (and just about every other religion)—despite that man thinks he can “control” something, oops, he can’t.
The day after Christmas, well into the middle of January, the area around here was without electricity, due to extremely high winds and ice knocking down transmission towers. Five other far-flung residences and I are at the far edge of this public power system (Nebraska has no privately-owned electrical utilities), the most primitive and last-maintained.
We miniscule few had no problems, no problems at all, and plenty of electricity, while thousands of others went without. And this, on the weakest and least-updated portion of the entire system.
Some people are just lucky, and of course I and all these others who use the telephone, the television, and the computer during thunderstorms, know that, and are appreciative of our good luck.
But what use is good luck unless one uses it?
My guess would be those spikes were from people trying to remain in touch during bad or scary weather. But certainly, not all storms will shut down service. Or as in towns and cities, parts of the grid may be affected while others aren't. Often, services remain active in very spotty, goofy patterns.
I'm not saying that just because a storm is due to pass through I automatically shut my system down. Yesterday we had some storms come through with thunder off to the South (that's most often the course). I stayed online throughout. Unless it bears right down on us, or it's slated to be sometime overnight, I won't shut down. For those possible overnight occasions I do, because I just don't want to take the chance, or have to get up in the middle of the night to fool with it.
I guess I'm basically lazy that way :)