A thunderstorm caused a Reddit user to lose some electronic devices. He believed he had unplugged all power cables. A surge in the modem affected other devices as well.
Lightning strikes during a thunderstorm pose a serious threat to people and electronic devices. For comparison: In Germany, the power grid has a voltage of 230 volts. A lightning strike can produce a surge of 10 million volts or more.
In the case of a Reddit user, a thunderstorm caused a devastating lightning strike on his house. The unlucky one initially thought he had taken adequate precautions against a potential surge. However, according to his statements, some devices were not on his radar.
What exactly is said to have happened and how it could have occurred, you can read in this article.
Lightning strikes with brutal force during a storm
What happened? Reddit user Thejus_Parol reports about a thunderstorm in his area. There was supposed to be a lightning strike in his house. The user stated that he had unplugged all power cables from his electronic devices as a safety measure. Believing he had thought of all power cables, the storm passed over him.
According to Thejus_Parol, after his precautions, a lightning strike occurred in the building. The resulting surge had devastating effects on the electronics in the house. To his dismay, he had forgotten to unplug the power cable of the fiber optic modem from the socket.
What consequences did the thunderstorm have for the user? A picture of his modem in the post shows the destructive force of the lightning strike. The socket in the wall, the surrounding area, and the modem along with cables are visibly damaged by the surge. If that wasn’t enough, the excessively high voltage also supposedly made its way through the LAN cable to the user’s computer and destroyed it as well.
Through additional pictures, the user wants to prove to the Reddit community the full extent of the surge damage. Besides the mainboard of the computer, his connected speaker boxes have also burned out.
Further damages and possible protective measures
Were there any further damages? Yes, according to his own words, there were. Thejus_Parol claims that the fuse box in the house allegedly exploded when the lightning struck. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of this.
Additionally, he says that his television also ceased to function. In this case, the lightning is thought to have struck the satellite dish. He believes the surge flowed into the connected set-top box and then through the HDMI cable to the TV. Here too, he fails to provide proof through pictures.
Fortunately, he states that he was not injured during the incident. It was only when the power was restored after two days that he became aware of the full extent of the destruction. He only noticed the defect of the TV when he tried to connect his computer to it because his PC monitor had also stopped working.
Could he have better protected himself? The question cannot be answered definitively with yes or no. Since it is not known in which country the user lives, different regulations may apply locally than here in Germany.
Nowadays, we have different lightning protection classes. These classes are assigned to various types of buildings and systems. The allocation is made through a risk assessment (via e-service-check.de).
In general, there is no legal obligation for lightning protection for private houses and apartments. However, there are exceptions. Particularly tall buildings or those with easily flammable roof materials must have a corresponding lightning protection system.
In the case of the Reddit user, it is said that most of his electronic devices had surge protection. However, he may have unplugged them along with the power cables. If there is no permanently installed surge protection in the building, unplugging devices is better seen as a temporary stopgap measure.
Another user was able to save his expensive hardware with a surge protector.
