Big ass thunderstorm rolled through Aiken tonight about dinner time. I yanked the plug on the computer, both power and phone line and it may have been a good thing I did. While eating dinner a really close lightning strike! seemed like right in the front yard, everyone jumped. The TV in the living room went silent. Uh-oh. Went over and tried to turn it back on and nothing. So I started checking the other stuff in the entertainment center. VCR – dead. Receiver – works. DVD – dead. Pulled the DVD player out and opened the cover to see if a fuse had blown. The fuse was fine, but power wouldn’t come back on. The same was true for the VCR, fuse good, but it wouldn’t come on. Didn’t try the TV, it is a 32″ and weighs about a 120 lbs and I figured I would get the same thing. Must have been like a nuclear explosion, no power surge, just a kick-butt Electro-Magnetic Pulse.
For the heck of it tried some other stuff around the house. Donna’s mom’s 3-way touch lamp as on and that is all it do, no changing levels or even turning it off. The 19″ TV in our bedroom (it was off) is dead. But the 13″TV/VCR combo her mom watches works fine. No TV so we were bored, Donna suggested we head out to Wally World and shop some prices. Guess what? The garage door opener got fried too, we had to go out the front door!
The damages are adding up. I wonder how State Farm deals with this, we have a $500 deductible….