Getting Zapped through the phone during lightning...This is not an Urban Legend

[helen]

Re: Getting Zapped through the phone during lightning...This is not an Urban Legend

I remember in the 1970's that lightning hit a house on Kauai and during the mid 1980's there was a ground strike in the vistor's parking lot next to UH's Keller Hall.

I am not sure if that house on Kauai caught fire and someone died from that fire (lightning didn't hit that person, but it was an indirect cause).

[buzz1941]

Re: Getting Zapped through the phone during lightning...This is not an Urban Legend

Buzz1941's house in Kailua was hit during a storm last year. Did quite a bit of damage. Fried all the electronics in the house, burned a bedroom wall and carpet and blew a plastic outlet cover to pieces, IIRC.

It actually struck the utility pole outside -- ignoring my very tall tree! -- and traveled down the power and cable connections to blow stuff up. Three other house near the pole were similarly effected. At the end of the line, the bolt blew a cannonball-sized hole in my daughter's bedroom. FYI, the surge protectors on the computers worked fine ... they were fried through the modem connection!

[Glen Miyashiro]

Re: Getting Zapped through the phone during lightning...This is not an Urban Legend

Wow, that's scary Burl! The NOAA report did say that lightning damage is typically under-reported. I am guessing that the figures they cite are from home insurance claims, or something similar. So in that case would your incident show up in somebody's records?

[tutusue]

Re: Getting Zapped through the phone during lightning...This is not an Urban Legend

[...]There are also figures on lightning-related injuries and property damage. Hawai'i is consistently at the bottom of the list on every measure.

This is a great list for Hawaii to be at the bottom of...for a change!

[damontucker]

Re: Getting Zapped through the phone during lightning...This is not an Urban Legend

A new report is out about how people are getting zapped on their "Mobile Phones"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060622/...BhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

"LONDON (Reuters) - People should not use mobile phones outdoors during thunderstorms because of the risk of being struck by lightning, doctors said on Friday....


"This rare phenomenon is a public health issue, and education is necessary to highlight the risk of using mobile phones outdoors during stormy weather to prevent future fatal consequences from lighting strike injuries," said Swinda Esprit, a doctor at Northwick Park Hospital in England."

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Getting Zapped through the phone during lightning...This is not an Urban Legend

its a conspiracy

[Pretender]

Re: Getting Zapped through the phone during lightning...This is not an Urban Legend

Well, I stand corrected. But it's still pretty uncommon, at least compared to the lightning strikes that I hear about from America.

(emphasis added)

Hmmm....South America?

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Getting Zapped through the phone during lightning...This is not an Urban Legend

(emphasis added)

Hmmm....South America?

Well....Hawaii isn't really part of any of the America's (North, Central or South) technically speaking that is. We are part of the United States...of America however.

[dick]

Re: Getting Zapped through the phone during lightning...This is not an Urban Legend

Ahhh... the theory that Hawaii gets no bolt lightning. A farce. We do. See Burl's fiasco... see the untolled amount of cattle dead due to lightning...

But I digress...

So I move to Idaho to get my first "full-time photo job."

Like clockwork, every afternoon in the summer a lightning storm moves in over the town I live in.

One day I decide to go outside and check it out... hell, lightning don't strike...
and a bolt hits the power pole across the street... a weird sizzling sound I'll never forget..

People from the paper were all, "what the hell are you doing outside... you could die!"

After that, anytime I see lightning I stay indoors or in my car...