We had a lightening strike on our home a few years ago and it wiped out just about every electrical appliance in the house. The electrician checked the grounding rod and found that someone had cut it off and stolen most of it. They checked the other homes in the area and all of them were gone. The rods are about an inch in diameter and six feet long. They had cut about six inches off the top of them and put it back in the ground and took the rest.
Happened to a local church here, and many other buildings. Too many people are just garbage, sad to say.