Lesson Learned Through Experience
I am coming to you this month with a more personal story.
On the night of December 27, severe thunderstorms rolled through the area where I live. My house took a direct lightning strike, causing electrical shorts and an attic fire. Thankfully, we were home, allowing us to extinguish the fire quickly, minimize the damage and avoid injury. However, minimizing the damage from a direct strike still meant dealing with significant repairs.
Here are some lessons I learned:
- Have fire extinguishers and fire blankets (more than 1) in strategic places, and know how to use them. I used 1 of my wife’s favorite throw blankets to snuff out the fire. She ordered fire blankets the very next day.
- Get surge suppressors. Escambia River Electric Cooperative offers whole-house surge suppressors for rent or sale, as well as installation behind your power meter. If you mention this article, we will waive the installation fee through April 2025. A whole-house suppressor eliminates most of the voltage that may come in through a surge in a power line, but it is still a good idea to have plug-in suppressors for each sensitive or major appliance to catch any remaining surge or protect against a direct strike.
- Lightning protection systems for your home aren’t as expensive as you might think. Lightning is unpredictable. The best protection is to ensure it finds its path to the ground around your home rather than through it. A lightning protection system installed at your home does not attract more lightning; it simply provides a safe path if your home is struck. Check your home insurance policy for discounts for installing a lightning protection system.
- Not all smoke alarms are created equal. In our previous home, the smoke alarm would sound almost every time I cooked bacon. This time, our bedroom was almost entirely full of smoke before the alarm went off. That’s a scary thought, because not every fire comes with a loud crash to wake you up.
Even though this event happened, my family was blessed in many ways. Not everyone who experiences a lightning strike or house fire is able to tell the story. I hope you take precautions that allow you to live to tell your story if this ever happens to your family.
With every approaching storm, the burden of this job causes me to worry about our brave lineworkers who work in terrible conditions. They are fathers, sons, grandfathers, grandsons and brothers. The anxiety I now feel with every approaching thunderstorm will stay with me for a long time.