This happened about a week and a half ago. I'm living in a 14' travel trailer with all metal exterior and the door is metal too.

It was thundering up a storm. Errr, storming and thundering. It was raining and there was lightning. I went out to do something or other and the kitten got out behind me, so I scooped her up from the wet and the dark and just as I started to open the door there was a flash of lightning - not really that close but not all that far off either - and the cat and I got zapped big time. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but my microwave doesn't work anymore - the timer goes and the clock works but it doesn't microwave anymore. Maybe a fuse. Maybe if I get industrious I'll unbury it and try to see. It also fried my cordless phone - I think it fried the base because the handset still worked until the battery ran down, I didn't realize it wasn't recharging for 5 days, when I went to use the phone and it was dead. There were little black zap marks on the contacts where the phone plugs into the base.

Whatever it was didn't set off the alarms on the UPS. It did alarm the cat (and me) rather extensively, however.

I guess its a good thing I use old skids as a "front porch/walkway" in front of the camper so I wasn't standing directly on the wet ground. Nobody actually got fried (except apparently the microwave).

Apparently you don't have to be at ground zero to get struck by lightning.

Now my brother wants me to take a piece of copper wire and affix it to the bumper of the camper and then tie it in to the ground wire on the pole (the camper is right up next to the power pole).

So my question is:

(1) Is this safe?

and

(2) Will it actually DO anything?

-- Anonymous, July 01, 2001

Answers

You were probally hit by a static ground charge (possible 500,000+ volt potential) with very little amperage and theoretically less hazard potential. The closer to the source , the higher the amp potential and danger. Static , while painful is less dangerous than high amp charges, however any voltage or current has damage potential (thats why computers and electronics need protection against electrostatic discharge (ESD). Remember also that the human body functions on static level chemical charges.

-- Anonymous, July 01, 2001

Yeah, that's what it was like! Like a giant static discharge! Complete with sparks flashing between my hand and the door handle (or a giant spark, all I know is there was a flash of blue white light accompanying the zap).

Would grounding the trailer protect against something like that happening again?

-- Anonymous, July 01, 2001

If your trailer has a metal hitch tongue parking foot and it is in use to stabilize the trailer it should ground through that. Your actually safer if the ground was on a seperate lightning rod and the trailer was insulated by the tires, but this becomes moot when a travel trailer is attached to phone and electrical lines. You then become part of that circuitry.

-- Anonymous, July 01, 2001

Ummm, well the tongue hitch is also on a stack of wooden blocks. So there is no direct ground contact anywhere.

I've been in this place three years, I guess I've just been lucky so far.

-- Anonymous, July 01, 2001

Run the ground line then. Of course the best defense is to unplug sensitive appliances (computers, t.v. etc )during storms.

-- Anonymous, July 01, 2001

Sojourner- I have read of people haveing phycic abilitys after an encounter with lightning. Any thing happening? Tren

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

I see ... a long journey. I see ... a tall dark stranger. I see ... oh, never mind. That's just the guy at the small engine repair shop - I have to take my DR in this afternoon for warranty work.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Hello Sojourner. Is your camper straped down? A friend of mine had his roll in a storm and it was painful getting hit with fridge.

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001

Nope. It's just sitting here. I've had some high winds blow up and its scary when they do. It used to sit up at the top of the field and when it was up there there were a couple times I thought it might go over. I made my brother move it down into a slight hollow (land continues to drop off to the east from where it sits), back of the tree line, and since then it hasn't more than shuddered.

There's nothing to die it down too. Hopefully I'll be out of it by this fall. I'm seriously considering putting it to the torch when I'm finally free of it...

-- Anonymous, July 03, 2001