Posted on 02/02/2016 9:39:51 PM PST by Cats Pajamas
2 men lucky to be alive after Lighting struck there boat shed in Sydney Australia
Last summer lightning struck the antenna of our 15x25 EMT building. I was about inside about 20’ away. Very loud. Blew out all of our computer stuff.
I have seen lightening that close many times over the years, but the worst was a beautiful evening in Nevada where I called my two favorite girls to 4-wheel up into the hills to watch the sunset. When we left there was some storm activity far to the south, but based on my eleventy billion years of experience those few scattered bolts would strike far to the south and not come anywhere near us. Once we got high into the hills, gods wrath quickly encompassed every square inch around us, it was stunning how quickly we became engulfed....now understand I drive a 1966 landcruiser that the top has not been on since 1999. We abandoned ship for a brief time in the sudden tempest trying to find a safe place on foot to weather the storm. Within seconds a bolt hit closer than any bolt I had ever seen (and I have seen many bolts nearby throughout my life), the pure white light turned our corneas red, and the crack and the light were simultaneous, and all of our hair despite being drenched to the bone stood out straight up, with not a single strand touching any other. That bolt was felt. We all rushed back to the landcruiser and headed down the mountain side in rivers of water as fast as we could at all costs drove through the flash floods in the river washes in the valleys at the bottom while marveling at St Elmos fire. To this day every time I can see that hill (which is perfectly visible from US395), I remember that night
Wow!
lightening isn’t dangerous- just watch the movie ‘the great outdoors’ with John Candy- the fella keeps getting zapped by lightening-
I stepped out on the porch for a cigarette once and saw and heard lightening and thunder at the exact same moment- don’t know where it struck, but it was somewhere very close nearby- it was very freaky-
One night lightning struck and split a tree as I drove past, about 15 feet away. Talk about loud! It sure got my attention.
I worked for retail register company- I was dispatched to replace a register that had been stuck by lightening. Front door was open- bolt came thru door and no more register.
no one was standing at register but was witnessed by employees and customers.
Hubby gets mad at me when thunderstorms are in the area because I go outside with camera in hand. Love me some lightnin' and like to get video in order to save images of the good lightning bolts.
I video through the windows if a storm is on top of us and it's raining. One night, a bolt struck that blinded me and made me yelp. It wasn't until I played the video and got a freeze frame of the bolt that I realized it had struck just a couple hundred feet from the house. I was glad I'd been inside that time!
The odds of getting stuck by lightning in one’s lifetime are 1 in 300,000. Hall of Fame golfer Lee Trevino has been struck THREE times, and each time he was out on the golf course with a lightning rod in his hand.
I got stuck in a thunderstorm on my motorcycle once. Open face helmet and no windshield, the hail was extremely painful. I was out in the country with no place to hide so I just kept riding until I got out of the storm. Lightning struck a telephone pole about 50 feet in front of me and really lit
it up good. I learned the next day that the same storm propagated a small tornado that threw a few cars off the road. That was one harrowing experience I do not wish to repeat.
We went through it on top of a mountain also but we were backpacking. The lightening hit as we were at the top of the pass and just above the tree line. Came up quick. We expected weather but not that. Only luck none of us were struck. Got off the pass, looked back and could not believe the light show going of up there that we had just hiked through.
Many years ago during a severe lightning storm, I raised by basement garage door to get something from my truck.
I’d felt it would be okay since that area was much lower than anything surrounding it and if a strike came, it would be a tree or the top of the house. When I got to the truck and touched it, I felt the weirdest sensation like a tingling or being in a strong electric field. I quickly left to go back inside and just moments later lightning struck a tree very nearby.
I believe that when I touched the truck, I partially grounded it to the wet concrete and that I’d opened up ground channel for all that electric potential to short out to the ground. Whatever it was, it was a damned weird feeling I’ve not had since anywhere.
Chuck Norris strikes lightning.
My heart was pounding just reading that story.
Back in the ‘70s I was a lifeguard at a pool on the top of an apartment house in N.W. Washington. One afternoon I was watching a storm drop lightning around Catholic University on the other side of town and had the random thought “Why doesn’t lightning ever strike near where you are?” Almost at once, a huge bolt of lightning hit the building across the street at my level, less than 100 feet away. The bolt was as wide as a Volkswagen with a pink core, and the light, concussion, and sound were instantaneous. By blind instinct, I ran from the pool, raced down ten stores of stairway, got in my car and was almost a block away before I recovered my presence of mind and asked myself “What am I doing?”
He should have been hitting a 1 iron. It is said that not even God can hit a 1 iron! LOL
I am sorry to laugh but that was so hilarious what you said at the end of your story. Check this strike, it blew a manhole cover into the air. Crazy scary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9f0NUb-G3I
And thanks to everyone who shared their stories. All great.
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