BE LIGHTNING and ELECTRICITY SAFE ON YOUR COUNTRY PLACE
By John Vivian
Protecting yourself from April Showers
By John Vivian
A good many years ago, when I was new to country living, I was talking on the phone — handset tucked between ear, chin, and shoulder — while replacing a washer on the kitchen faucet. It was drizzling outside, and I could hear occasional distant thunder but saw no lightning. Suddenly I felt a snap! in my ear and fell back, stunned. I never heard the thunderclap or saw the lightning bolt that must have hit the phone line miles away before seeking the best route to ground—my open phone line, literally an arm's length away from a wet iron sink.
My outer ear was singed, but not severely. Had the bolt been nearer or stronger, I could have been injured or even killed. There was no damage to the old-style Bell telephone, either, but a modern electronic telephone could have had its delicate chip-innards fried.
In 1990 (a typical year), 72 people were killed and 252 injured by lightning in the United States. The number of livestock and buildings lost nationwide isn't tabulated, but is substantially higher. And the solid-state electronic devices damaged by transients, spikes, and surges from lightning and other sources in the power and telephone lines are more numerous still.
Most of these losses could have been avoided. Here's how you can reduce the chance of electrical damage to the people, animals, and buildings on your property.
Electricity in a Nutshell
As we all learned in school — then promptly forgot — electrical current is a stream of free electrons: negatively charged (-) atomic particles moving at light speed toward a positively charged (+) ground. The volume of a current is measured in amperes (amps), the energy behind it in volts. (Yes, fellow electronics buffs, we could get into AC/DC, potential, load, and more technology, but it isn't relevant here.) What is important is that damage can be caused by a few amps of 110-volt house current — to say nothing of a lightning bolt that can develop up to 200,000 amps at 100 million or more volts.
Lightning occurs when violent winds inside clouds separate (-) and (+) charged air particles into layers (the (+)s on top of the cloud and the (-)s at bottom), with a corresponding (+) layer along the ground. When enough (-) charges accumulate, they will arc through as much as a mile of (nonconducting) air. Ka-pow! You have lightning, which will ground out on the highest conductor: a tree, building, or a horse or person standing in the open. And yes, you may have seen lightning streak upward. Often a lofty object such as a church steeple or tree will act as a "ladder," sending the (+) ground charge up to meet the (-) charge coming down from the clouds.
You can avoid harm from lightning or any electrical current by insulating it out or offering it a better route to the ground. Some materials (insulators such as rubber, brick, glass, and dry wood) hold tight to their electrons and won't easily allow a current through. Others (conductors such as your body and mine, anything wet, and most metals) happily pass along an electric current. Mother Earth herself (ground in electrical terms) is the best conductor of all.
Outdoors In a Storm
Learn to read your local weather indicators. At the approach of threatening clouds or the first distant thunderclap, get the kids out of the lake or off the jungle gym and inside a walled building or into a rubber-tired vehicle.
If you're caught out haying in a sudden electrical storm, do not seek shelter under a tree (especially if you smell metallic-spicy ozone and feel the hair on the back of your neck rise — indicating that you are in the ground field of a lightning cell). Hightail it away from trees or telephone poles and head for low ground (but not to a swamp or stream). If you are in the woods, find a clearing if you can. Move away from the tallest timber.
Drop the chain saw or hay rake and remove any exposed metal on your body (wristwatch, belt buckle, even a cap with a fabric-covered metal button on top). Don't lie or even sit, but squat on your rubber boot heels on a dry spot of ground in a knees-up/head-down crouch. Danger from direct strikes is negligible (side flashes cause the most injury), but make yourself as compact a target, with as little contact with moist ground as possible till the storm passes.
Inside the House
As soon as an electrical storm threatens, close all doors and windows. Lightning can arc through the air to the nearest conductor in the house (the TV, a radiator), while dry wood and glass are effective insulators.
Surprisingly perhaps, lightning will skip happily down chimneys. Meeting a non-conductive wood floor, brick fireplace, or slate stove board, it will arc across the room to the stereo (passing through anyone in its path). You're safest huddling on the floor in the center of a windowless room without a fireplace or stove. Never get between in-and-out conductors (say, between an open window or the fireplace and an exposed plumbing pipe).
Contrary to conventional wisdom, do not unplug appliances during an electrical storm. A powerful spike can jump out of the socket at you. Don't shower, wash, or do dishes either. Metal plumbing pipe is as effective a conductor as heavy electrical cable.
You know not to have a plugged-in radio, shaver, or hair dryer anywhere near the tub or sink; if an appliance falls into the water, it can electrocute you whether it is turned on or not. In newer construction, all outlets near water faucets are fitted with a building-code-mandated ground-fault protector: a wall outlet having a pair of small, colored buttons to reset a circuit breaker that kicks off if ever a smidgen of current leaves the confines of the household circuit. For automatic protection in an older home, invest $35 in a ground-fault protector for each outlet in your bath and kitchen. To be effective, the fixtures must be well grounded, so have an electrician install yours unless you honestly know what you are doing.
Telephone Lines
If you still have hardy, old-style, bell-ringer telephones, you may have heard a tinkle after lightning struck the high-lines — despite the TelCo lightning arrestor installed between the main lines and your home phones (in our service area, the arrestor is enclosed inside a square gray plastic housing connected to an independent ground).
However, answering machines, feature phones, faxes, and computer modems contain delicate solid-state electronics that can be ruined by a surge that isn't strong enough to trigger the TelCo arrestor. In a newer home-phone installation, you can disconnect your phones from the high-lines by pulling the clear-plastic modular clipplug from your "network interface" — a small plastic box located in your cellar or utility closet near the phone line entry.
For automatic protection in a system of any vintage, you can install a phone-voltage spike suppressor at the service entry or at each phone jack. (When modern electronics was young, we experimenters wired a pair of auto-type fuse holders into the red and green wires of the phone line. Loaded with low-amp fuses, they blew before spikes could damage our "phone freak" equipment.) Today, most electronics stores or catalogs sell under-$15 telephone-line spike suppressors that can be installed at the entry or between phone jack and terminal equipment.
Homeowner-installed suppressors require a 3-prong electrical socket to connect to ground (if your older house lacks modern 3-wire outlets, see "Connecting Spike Protectors and Modern Appliances to Older House Wiring"). The better designs contain an array of electronics to intercept transients as rapidly and completely as possible. You'd think that in combination these devices would sidetrack all electrical spikes, but they are not 100% effective. Lightning is incredibly powerful and can arc across a whole battery of arrestors if you offer an irresistible route to the ground (say, talking on the phone while luxuriating in the bathtub). Don't phone out during electrical storms, and let the answering machine take the risk with incoming calls.
