Monday, May 26, 2008

Hit by Lightning

What is the wierdest or most amazing natural disaster you've ever experienced?

Almost a month ago there was this CRAZY thunder and lightning storm--I mean crazy! We get some pretty incredible storms in TEXAS but even this one was spectacular. We had just turned out the lights to go to sleep when I heard this little panting at the side of my bed, "little chubbs" had woken up from the storm and was totally freaked out. He was looking all around at the windows that were just flashing and kept burrying his head into my chest. I could feel his heart just racing and he was panting. We kept trying to soothe him and assure him he was safe but he wouldn't move his little head and he plastered the rest of his little body to me too.

In the middle of all this soothing a HUGE FLASH and BOOM just rattled us, I jumped and declared that it must have been a close one. We didn't lose power but our alarm system freaked out and started beeping, a few of the zones had gone red. But other than that we seemed unaffected.....

In the morning our phone line wasn't working. I assumed that it was damaged on a larger scale from the storm and had caused the problems with our security system. I called a service tech and waited....and waited....consequently our internet wasn't working that day (phone line right?) and our satellite seemed to be having problems responding when I commanded it with the remote control. So we slowly discovered that the security system was only the beginning of our problems.

A lighting bolt or surge of somekind must have hit between our home and our neighbor (because they were affected to) and it damaged the following: our security system, our sprinkler system timer box, our DVD player, our VCR, our satellite reciever box. This reciever box had a slingbox attached to it for our "Apple Joey" who lives in Zurich but can't live without his American sports, the sling box was toast and because it uses the internet it fried our network card on our computer and our router. Oh, and one of our sensors to our garage door went out too.

All in all, we probably are out about $500, can we say economic stimulus $$? Sure we have homeowners insurance but our deductable is too high to file a claim--just one of the joys of home ownership!

What exciting natural disasters have caused a story in your life?

1 comment:

The McGary Family said...

Oh My!!! Scary to think that the lightning was that close to your home. Thankfully the only damage was to material things that can be replaced and that your family is safe. They say lightning never stikes twice, so hopefully this will never happen again.