Posted by Billy NY on July 13, 2012 at 05:34:00 from (67.248.100.3):
In Reply to: OT:Lightning posted by RBnSC on July 13, 2012 at 03:58:55:
Did your hair stand up from the static electricity ? Its a frightening situation, before it happens,and its really odd, as right before you hear that explosion, there is this ZZZZZZZZ....TTTT noise, then the crack of it slicing through the air immediately follows, you never hear that above sound unless you are real close to the strike.
When I was a kid, and had longer hair, I was tossing one of those lawn jarts that I found, never saw one before, hey this is kinda fun, thunderstorm is headed toward us, but I could not really see, had remembered what to do if it ever happened, hair stand up. It stood up alright and I hit the deck, bolt of lightning struck within 50 feet or so, I mean it was real close, boy was I lucky.
I have witnessed it hitting all kinds of things over the years, April of 2011, at like 1:30 am, I was up and there was some disturbance or a thunderhead could apparently, it struck and old poplar, biggest one on this farm, and blew out a 6" to 8" trench in the trunk 40'to 50' long, it sent 4x4 size chard's of wood out, smaller pieces measured out to be over 100'-0" into a field. It was as if charges were placed to carve out that trench in the trunk of it, I have photos of it.
I saved a few pieces of it why I do not know, but that had to be one super charged strike, I never saw such damage from lightning, and it came in on a small branch like 1" diameter, or it met from the ground up to that branch if I understand the dynamics of what happens, I saw it hit our old victorian house, from up on the hill at our new house, and I could not tell where it hit. Place should have burned down, every window in the place lit up with an amber glow, it was intense to see this.
The worst place I have ever been was on a Caterpillar D5, on a big site job, we had 18 pieces going on that job, was not on the D8K that day pushing pans, foreman had me grading building pads, in the middle of what was a beautiful dairy farm in Howell, NJ somewhere off Vanderveer road, the place was flat and there was 200 + acres, plus adjoining lands that were just as flat, one area was a big ole sod farm, the top soils were incredible, what a waste and what destruction we did to that place, tore the barns, silos down, I hated being involved in it. Every week a storm would roll in, guaranteed, and this idiot foreman would wait until the last minute to call us in to the staging area, where we park the equipment and get fueled up, top off fluids, do repairs.
Well that lightning was getting closer and we all raced back in, I never ran any of those older cats in 3rd gear, ever, full throttle, just touch a steering lever and huge chunks of turf flying, I left before the foreman called it, to heck with him I am outta here man, this is nuts, the guy in the old Kobelco, air over hydraulic excavator, was creeping along with the boom and stick folded up and the bucket curled just dragging, he's crouched in the seat, I have a photo of me running that same machine, I will never forget the look of fear on his face and how it seemed to take for ever, I'd have left it and ran, darned foreman cared more about production than the safety of those who were getting it done.
Its nothing to fool with, good you are all right, had you been that close to the poplar I mentioned above, you would have been impaled or stuck but good with giant splinters. I guess its not only true that it can knock limbs off, topple a tree, also explodes violently too, crazy stuff to be around !!!!
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