Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Almost became a has been this evening

30 years ago, I was in the back yard watching a storm roll in, when a bolt arced through the sky above me. It landed a half mile away, but the hair on my arms sure did stand up! And the smell of ozone was strong!

Took my BiL and my son to the old Homestead farm to pick up a china hutch 15 years ago; went down to the stock pond to take my son fishing. Typical Texas storm brewed up in under 15 minutes, and it unleashed a lightning strike that hit about 100 yards away. We piled back into the truck, and high-tailed it out. We got maybe 100 yds down the pasture before the rain came down in buckets.

To this day my mother (83) will not take a shower in her PEX plumbed house in a thunderstorm, nor talk on her wireless house phone or cell phone, lest she be struck down.

July 2007 i was grilling steaks on the pad outside our walking basement door.
It blew up a big dam storm, so I pulled the grill into the doorway.
Grill outside, men in. Buckets of rain, thunder, lightening. Nice show!
I never feared lightning. The odds and all. Getting hit ain't likely.


Steaks done, we are eating.
Suddenly, a big dam boom, big flash. Looked like it hit behind the neighbors.

Then, our screen door opens and someone was beating on the door. Trying to open it. The hitting it, jerking on it.

I ran over, opened it, letting a neighbor in.
Eyes like saucers, face red, out of breath, he ask if we were ok.

"Sure why"

"That lightning hit your house!"

"It hit behind Kenny's".

"Well, your chimneys all over your roof and the ground?"

That bolt blew up the chimney from the top to the roof.
It split it in 4 places to the ground.

Don't know what would have happened if it hit while I was grilling,
But I was standing 6 feet from the chimney, on a wet floor, in bare feet.

I watched a bolt hit about 20 yards from a herd of my neighbors cows huddled behind an old cabin, he just about lost 20 cows that day. I decided it was time to head inside for a bit. Lost a TV a couple years ago, stood the hair on my neck up inside the house. I looked for the strike site and never did find it, but it must have been close.

10 years ago wife and I are sitting in living room watching tv. Enclosed, glass windowed sun porch is room to our north. Don’t hear much in the way of thunder, but an arc comes through the living room window (and had came through the windows of sun porch), goes across living room between wife and I and hits the Dish network receiver. Not some crazy big lightning bolt, but definite arc. Both our hairs were standing up. Dish receiver was zapped. Outlet was smoked, but nothing else in the house was damaged. We both looked at each other and both of us were “did you just see that? Did that just happen?” We both saw the same thing.

Maybe God was telling us to switch to DirectTV?

I imagine his eyes are brown.

Yeah, being indoors won't save you, contrary to popular belief.

Place in NM I had, up in the mountains was a lightning magnet...

One strike hit the eve of the house, came through the wall and fried the huge mirrors in the bathroom... The silver behind the glass was melted and black. Fried every TV in the place too.

At the same place, a strike hit behind the house, and plowed a ditch over 100' long, 3 foot wide, and a foot and a half deep. It also ran down the fenceline for a half a mile and welded a T-post to a pipe cross brace in the fence.

Another strike hit a power pole behind the barn. It was so close, I could taste it. Seriously. Had a coppery taste in my mouth for a long time after that.. maybe an hour.

Lightning does some strange things.

Yep, got thrashed once over a rubber snake in the "patch".

Getting my drivers license ended my farming career. My grandfather and parents fully approved, it looked to be a dead end in late 70's.

A friend had a lightning strike on the transformer supplying his house. He found a hole blown out in his drive way where the current had traveled through the re-inforcing wire in his slab. Electricity does do some strange stuff.

I had a near miss when I was about 13 in Indiana. It was close enough it was like looking out from inside of a light bulb.

Our youngest daughter called me at work in a panic one day. She had been sitting in the chair next to an open living room window when a storm rolled in. Lightening and boomers close by. The dogs were freaking out in the garage so she got up to let them in.

When she came back in the house, she said a huge fireball came through the window she was sitting by and exploded in the dining room. I assumed she was exaggerating but went home anyway to check things out. The power was out in the house and there was a puddle of water under the dining room table, the size of the table. All I can figure is when it blew above the table, it sucked all the moisture in the house to that spot.

We lost most of the outlets and electronics in that one.

Another time I was driving my little IH240 Utility tractor over to a neighbors to pick up my tiller. The air was heavy and the skies were flashing. Every hair on my body was standing up. That one freaked me out because I could just feel a strike was coming soon.

Erie feeling for sure.

About 50 years ago, my brother and I were out in a leveled hay field surrounded by small rolling hills. I looked over at him and every hair on his head was standing on end. WTF?

He looked over at me and said mine was the same.

We were the only vertical projections for about 150 yds in any direction. We both dropped our irrigating shovels and beat feet out of there.

Dad wondered why we wanted a ride in the pickup 1/2 mile back out to pick up the shovels a couple hours later.

That's as close as I have come. I guess God likes me better than he does HC, or HC's friend. Did not ever figure I needed scared back to "the path".

In the early 90s I went on a summer backpacking trip with some folks up the the Chiricahua Mountains in southeastern Arizona. We were several hours up the trail when the storm hit, lightning striking all around. With nowhere to take refuge we just continued the hike, trying not to think about the aluminum frames strapped to our backs. It's a strange feeling recognizing that you're in the hands of fate and there's not a damned thing you can do about it. Gotta wonder if that's not where we stand at all times, but with the luxury of mistakenly believing we are in control of things.

About thirty years ago I was stuck in slow moving traffic on a main suburban artery when all hell busted loose. Lightning struck a transformer about 100 ft. in front of me, then a mile later another transformer strike across the road. Figured it was getting dialed in and was very, very happy to get home.

Lightning bolt as big as a tree 30 paces away, you in bare feet on wet ground.

Laughing!
There is no limit to how full of s h i t you are.

#can'tkillthetroll

We used to have a workmate who spent considerable time staring at the wall and carrying on half of a conversation. He always failed to understand why none of the rest of us could see Jesus. "He's right there, Man!".

The young man had an excuse, I guess. He had consumed mass quantities of really bad drugs in his teens and twenties. I understand he was a wonderful musician. I never heard him play. I don't hang in those joints. He was a hell of a worker with any menial, physical task. That's why we kept him around.

Unfortunately, after working with us for about three years, he was found in his car alongside a country road with a couple bullet holes and a pistol in his lap.

A couple years back, We had one heck of a storm hit overnight. Woke me up twice. In the morning everything seemed good but the Televisions wouldn't turn on. I got to looking and lightning had hit the cherry tree about 10 feet from the bedroom window.

The cable line just so happened to run through the branches of said tree.

The tree took a beating and the cable was split and frayed.

The cable company fixed their stuff and that tree made some mighty fine cooking and smoking wood.

Barns and houses used to have lightning rods. Now you never see them. Why not?