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This is what happens when lightning strikes your house
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My house was hit about 7 years ago and it was one of the worst experiences you can have. I would rather swim with hungry sharks than have my house struck again.
I saw this posted it describes what its like when lightning strikes your house very well.-
Have you ever been close to a lightning strike or been hit by lightning?
I have. Having a backstage pass for nature's sound and light show isn't something that fades from your memory. Ever.
I was around nine years old, and it was a humid summer night back at the old homestead in Rockford, IL. I remember sitting at the screen door watching the night sky light up as a whopper of a thunderstorm rolled in. To this day I can sit and be completely hypnotized by the roiling of clouds sweeping towards my puny self, spewing lances of angry energy downward.
I can completely understand why the ancients considered lightning weapons thrown by gods.
School was out, so my folks were pretty lax on the bedtimes. After the downpour started, watching the lightning wasn't as entertaining so I was sitting in a chair in the living room reading a book ("A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle. Funny how these details stick with me). My Sister, Grandmother, and Mom were all watching MASH. My Dad had gone to bed early: he had to go in to work on Saturday morning for something.
About 10:15 PM Thor decided he didn't like our home. Nope, didn't care for it at all.
When the lightning struck, the noise was deafening. I have stood less than thrity yards from a Harrier Jump Jet taking off, and less than five yards from a speaker at a Metallica concert and I can tell you that is a mere whisper compared to the noise at ground zero of a lightning hit.
It felt like some huge hand picked up the floor and shook it. Pictures flew off the wall, dishes cracked on the shelves, and I fell out of my chair. Our dog shot over to me shaking in fear with her tail between her legs, and I thought something was wrong because her mouth kept opening and closing but the only noise was a high-pitched whine. I realized I was temporarily deaf. I probably have hearing damage to this day. All the blonde peach fuzz on my arms and legs was sticking up and tingling from the charge in the air.
About a minute later my father staggered into the room in his underwear, white as a ghost and covered in dust. The headboard of his bed was against the back wall of my parent's bedroom, with space on either side to climb in. What had happened was that the lightning blew holes on either side of the bed he was sleeping in, and covered him in plaster dust.
It's the only time in my life I can remember seeing my Dad scared shitless. My dad is a Marine who served in an EOD (explosives ordinance disposal) unit. I've seen him worried more times than I can count, but scared? Hell no.
Dad said the light was so bright it was like staring into the sun, even with his eyes closed. What's amazing is that the lightning didn't scorch anything in the room. Not the floor, not the dresser, nothing.
Just those two holes, both about an inch in diameter, smoking in the corners of the room with a stench of ozone and burnt insulation.
My dad said later that this was "pretty goddamn low on the list of ways he wanted to wake up from a deep sleep" :)
We called the fire department and got out of the house. The firemen inspected the attic and pronounced it safe. What's even weirder is that there was no hole in the roof. The lightning must have conducted through a nail or the TV antenna
[link to www.frizzensparks.com]
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