Rub it in. I should contact a mod for that remark
Wait 'til July and then you can rub it in!
I was at one of the ROSCO/ICBM launches and the clouds started moving in pretty quickly. It was obvious to everyone that the launch was going to be over soon, so clean-up started. We were moving stuff back to the trailer when one of my buddies said my hair started standing up. I looked around and sure enough, people with longer hair had it fluff up. I felt my head and it was so strange. Clean-up mode got a lot faster for me at that point. I think I made it into the truck minutes before the storm hit. I don't recall any lightning, but I was scared to find out.
The closest I've ever been to a lightning strike was a tree 15 feet outside of the bedroom. I think we were in the living-room at the time, so maybe 30-50 feet, but it was the strangest thing. It seemed like right before the huge flash of light there was a pulse in my body (didn't hurt just like a quick puff), then everything went bright (it was at night) and then a huge Crack/BOOOOOM instantly. It was loud enough you felt it as much as heard it. Freaked us out. All of our expensive electronics were either unplugged (habit from my childhood) or on power strips. Regretfully, nothing on the phone line was protected by that connection and we had DSL, so lost 2 TV's and 2 motherboards for computers, the DSL modem, a router and the phones. It also killed one breaker in the electrical panel, but not sure why.
The biggest loss was the tree. It was a beautiful oak, probably 1.5ft in diameter that shaded the bedroom and was just a nice tree. Once the storm was over, we went outside and most of the bar on the tree had been blown off. Hoping it would live, we just let it be, but as time went on, it was obvious that it was not going to come back. It started dropping limbs, no leaves etc. and we had it taken down, as it was so close to the house that it was going to damage the roof if it kept dropping limbs.
Lightning is amazing. And scary.
Sandy.