Too Close For Comfort!

It was a typical Florida thunderstorm. Pouring rain, bright lightning, crashing thunder. The power had been flickering periodically. Roger was outside working on the lawnmower under the covered carport. I was washing up dishes in the kitchen sink and looking out the window towards the carport. All of a sudden, this HUGE bolt of lightning struck outside the window just beside where Roger was working. It was super thick - the lights flashed several times in the house. I couldn't tell for sure if it hit the roof of the carport or the tree beside it. I immediately felt my arm start tingling, too. I ran out to check on Roger and he was fine except for some aching ears from the loud boom. There was smoke in the air, but we couldn't tell where it originated. It appeared that we had suffered no major damage, but when I came back inside I noticed that about half of our power was out. I flipped the fuses that had been blown and then noticed something in our bedroom floor. This singed switch plate was laying on the floor, but I couldn't figure out where it had come from.

We finally saw that it had blown off of the light switch by the back door. Must have been a powerful surge!

Later that day, we discovered that the phone and cable line had taken a hit as well. Our modem had to be replaced (covered by Comcast), as well as our two land line phones and our router. We decided that those items were relatively inexpensive and not worth filing an insurance claim. Several days later, however, we discovered that the washer timer was no longer working (fortunately the washer itself still works, but you have to manually move it to each cycle). Then we discovered that the motion detector light on the end of the carport was out as well. Upon closer inspection, we saw that it had been blackened, too. Hopefully we'll stop finding broken things soon!