Yes, your Mom's well being is the most important thing. That device is for surge protection. It should work if the lightning strike hits the power lines a 1/4 mile down the road. It will not protect you from a direct lightning strike like Ryan took. Think about it, that lightning bolt jumped a few thousand feet out of the clouds, when it gets to the earth, the electric current follows wires and ground water, it can splash out like a spilled glass of milk.
Prayers for yer mama. It's booger when all the smoke goes out of electronics. Reminds us of how dependent we are on stuff we don't understand and can't be fixed.
An interesting thought... and I've had a lot during the recovery of all this... is that technology can be more permanent than paper. Lets say this was a fire instead of a lightening strike. All of my paper goods would be gone - my extensive old magazine collection, my records before I went digital, all of my hardware, etc... However, my backed up data in the cloud would still be there. I actually got pretty lucky all things considered. While it's costing me the cost of a decent little model-a hot rod to replace all the hardware and computer shit, I lost zero data.
And that’s due to excellent planning on your part, good job! I hope Mom’s recovering quickly, I’m sure in spite of it all she was thrilled to be there with you and your kids. Truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience for non- NYC residents. Here’s to a New Year way better than the old one! Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
And I thought I had some bad luck the week before Christmas...The hard drive on one of my cash registers went out, the replacement I usually have in my office acted up aswell and kept hanging up, two towel dryers in the shops went bad but I could fix one of them, my winter beater took a crap and broke 6 rocker arms, plus I ripped my two favorite jeans.... ok , one was 8 and the other 10 years old, but what the heck, hahahaa Ryan, you won! I hope your Mom will feel better soon and recover from her fall. All the best! Hang in there.
Sorry to read about your run of bad luck, but like I tell my son..........Things could always be worse and as long as you have good health you can recover from almost anything that happens. I hope the bad luck has run its course and that 2020 starts a new run of exceptionally good luck for you !
Did you forget to eat your ham and blackeyed peas for good luck ? Wishing you and your Family a better run of Luck the rest of the year .Hope your Mom heals up quickly. I feel for you . Back when we still had a tv tower up hooked to the tv . About every couple years a new tv and everything hooked up to it. Then in Dec 99 we had to replace everything in the house when the roof was removed . Kind of strange to be standing in one's living room looking up and seeing stars after the storm passed.
We live outside Boerne, and didn't want to suffer the same loss as you, or greater. Had our electrician install a surge protector at the service from the electric company, and a whole house protector at the house. Finally we had Hamilton Lightning Rods install lightning rods on both the shop and house. Lightning rods don't prevent lightning strikes, they provide a means of controlling it, and preventing damage, besides they look neat. lightningrodpros.com
Sorry to hear about all of this Boss. Very glad to hear your mom is mending. Thank you for everything you do for us. I am glad 2019 is over, was a shit year for me as well.
Best wishes for your Mom. PG&E here replaced my sisters TV and Microwave several years ago after a power surge during a storm. Something for you to explore maybe.
@Ryan Glad to hear you're recovering from Mother Nature dishing out some strong weather. Lightning can be so beautiful and so destructive at the same instant. Is insurance going to help at all? Also, hope mom is better that before once she heals up. Way back when the IBM PC XT was the hot shit, we took a near direct hit that fried most of the electronics in the house. The hit left black sooty streaks on a couple outlets, and a snaking melted line through the carpet showed where the bazillion-volt strike had gone from the power meter mast on the outside of the house, across the carpet and through the floor to a copper water pipe. We were lucky the place didn't burn, but we sure thought it was on fire for a while due to a bit of smoke and the scorched smell.
I had four broken ribs earlier this year so I know what she is going through and I feel for her. That is pain no one should know. That hugging a pillow when you cough thing does help, that and Vicodin. My best wishes for her speedy recovery. As for that 1.21 Gigawatt strike, it can actually cause time travel. Unfortunately though only backward, right to the point electronics were created.
Ryan.Sorry to hear about your Mom.Wishing her a complete and speedy recovery.Mother Nature can be a mean bitch.Sounds like EMP got the unplugged items. Good luck,.Have fun.Be safe. Leo
Get well Momma Cochran. Hang in there My friend. I can relate buddy. Lighting is truly a remarkable force of power. 22 years ago - my house was 2 weeks old and I hadn’t even made 1 mortgage payment yet. About 9:00 pm light rain - small lighting flashing way far distant miles away. WITH OUT warning a bolt hit my house ( the galvanized furnace pipe cap ) and blew it off the house. I was right below it in the bathroom standing in my tub ( no water in it ) putting up window curtains and the purcussion knocked me over hitting my head against the separate shower door glass . As I was falling noticed a ball of sparks / fire launching into the back yard. My heart was racing the most I’ve ever known and I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t hit. My ears were ringing so loud, that’s all I heard - ringing ! The instant smell of melting wire. Lights out - walked to the only neighbor and called the fire dept. Fire dept was there for hours - all night - up in the attic, melted wires / melted phones / broke every GF Switches / Dryer light bulb shattered in the tub. The Fuse box in the garage - The door was wide open and fuse sockets / switches fried . Phones caught fire and melted to the counter top. They called the power company to turn off the power to the house at the street. The lighting went through the furnace ducts / the house - fuse panel - out to the ground rod, jumped to the cable tv cable that was not buried yet and traveled to the Cable TV junction box down back of my property and blew it up. EVERY appliance fried except one ! Yep- the only thing that didn’t fry was the furnace. Go figure. Everything else electrical fried and had to be replaced I found the furnace CAP in the back yard the next morning. It had a Kennedy Half Dollar diameter carbon mark. 39,000 dollars later ( insurance paid ) new wiring / ALL appliances / garage door openers / everything electrical ( except Furnace ) It’s not the volts - it’s the AMPs ! Have any idea how many AMPs are a 50 cent piece diameter lighting bolt ? Ryan - you ( we ) are lucky my friend. Sorry about my lengthy story. Hang in there. Best to your Mom.
Best wishes for your Mom ! I’m still using a flip phone, but I do have a backup generator. I’m old , what can I say. Hope the rest of the year treats you right. Sent from my iPad using H.A.M.B.
That sounds like quite a fall your Mom took. Best wishes for a speedy recovery for her. Hoping you recover all that data and stuff without any issues popping up.
Oh no I am so sorry, I’ve had 3 lightening hits in 2 different residences. When I moved a couple weeks ago to St Augustine, the power company asked if I wanted them to install a surge suppressor at the meter. So after what I’ve been through I thought it would be a good idea. The last strike took out my appliances too. I hope your mom heals fast. Hope she gets a bone density check too. Broken bones are so painful. I am no stranger to Murphy’s law. Glad you were there for her.
Yep mom is the most important - sound like shes like my buddies 91 year old mom that just fell and broke some ribs - hard to keep an o'Texas girl down.....and on the supercharged desk.... power happens.....just hope everything holds ! All the luck in 2020 from Toothpick Restorations and Stillrunners....let's go have some fun !
Good advice right there. Lightning is unpredictable and hard to replicate when designing and testing surge equipment. Don't count on a surge unit keeping you safe from a direct hit.
Hey Ryan, That was some Texas Size strike. We have heard and experienced Texas Size hail balls, but never so much lightning power. We do get some lightning out West, but nothing like that. There are some tall towers nearby that should take the brunt of the lightning strikes. Plus, our house is not the tallest in the neighborhood or street. We also have high surge protectors, but that was some big time surge that hit the pole. No one is prepared for those strikes. Our main computers are plugged in those surge protectors, hopefully they will stand up to the big surges too. But, we always disconnect the automatic back up transfers to the two external hard drives. So, they are in a deep cavern disconnected from the electric plugs and our USB plugs. I have no idea why I started that safety procedure, except since they are protected from water/sprinklers in case of fire, I did not want them hooked up to the main computers all of the time. Lucky us… Jnaki Also, since the laptops are not connected to any power except for charging, I assume they are ok. Also, we have several small 2tb solid state drives(disconnected, but handy for instant transfers) for instant saving of files,like taxes, house/car sales, big purchases, and legal stuff. So, I guess it is a back up to a back up on a smaller scale. Then, when it is time to do the big transfers to our larger external drives, everything is ready. It is fortunate that we all live near tall poles, even in underground utility neighborhoods. There are tall trees and some guy always has an antenna sticking up in their back yard or on a chimney. That should cover neighborhood strikes as they stick out like a sore thumb. So due to the abundance of satellite dishes, they are a target waiting to happen. We control what we can and accept those that we cannot. Sorry for your troubles and a “get well” to your mom.
Damn! Please add my best wishes for a speedy recovery for your mom. I know enough about this backup stuff to stay confused but I’ve always wondered how prodigious the system must be to protect sites like this. Personally I keep my backup hard drives in small fireproof file cabinets. 2020 should be a great year for you Boss, good luck!
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