wrote:

On 2 Jul 2005 16:35:48 -0700, "Joe Analssandrini"
wrote:

Hello Dr Artaud,

You are very lucky. The damage could have been far worse. Your house
could have burned down!

As you have found out, the National Weather Service, while far better
than in the past, is not as reliable as we should like.


We generaly don't have as much worry about lightning along the
coast of Calfornia. But we do have the local power utility.

Some years back, a worker dropped a multi-KV line across the
local 110V line. It took out almost all electronics on at least one
block, as well as burning out the motors on some refrigerators and
blowing a lot of light bulbs which were not even turned on at the
time.

I wonder when some idiot power company employee, bored out of his gourd,
will hook up a KV line to 110V and watch the houses blow up. Of course,
he'd probably spend a few years in prison, possibly the rest of his life
if he kills somebody, but at least he'll have fun doing it. I doubt that
the people whose lives he destroys won't be laughing, and the judge
won't like his explanation of "I was bored, Your Honor, so I decided to
have a little fun".

Several times when my grandparents lived out in the country, lightning
hit their power pole and literally sent flames shooting out of the
electrical sockets. Somehow, their house never burned down, although
everything electronic was ruined and so was their wiring. My grandfather
estimated that the lightning bolt must have been hundreds of GIGAVOLTS,
if not teravolts.


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