Lightning Safety

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Getting Old

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I am curious about what our forum readers feel about lightning safety.  In particular while parked at places like GNR and so forth.  I am not putting in my opinions so I won't influence the answers.  This subject may have been covered before just some thing else to kick around.

Don, WIT 70041
 
A lightning strike could happen but you probably have a better chance of winning the lottery.
 
We have kicked this around here several times and the consensus is that you are safer in a motorhome than standing outside. The motorhome has four tires insulating it from the ground and it is usually not the highest thing around. I live in Osceola County, the lightning capitol of the world and I have never been worried at all.
 
FYI, Here's a recent thread on the subject: http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php/topic,46027.msg864071.html#msg864071
 
SeilerBird said:
We have kicked this around here several times and the consensus is that you are safer in a motorhome than standing outside. The motorhome has four tires insulating it from the ground and it is usually not the highest thing around. I live in Osceola County, the lightning capitol of the world and I have never been worried at all.
Click to expand...


With the voltages involved the tires won't provide enough insulation to matter. The metal framework might help some though. Might act as a limited Faraday Cage.

edit by staff - fixed text size
 
A rig was struck by lightning at 2008 GNR I think it was. He had a Firestick CB antenna mounted on the side near the driver position. That was where the strike apparently hit. It splintered the fiberglass antenna, started a small fire under the dash, and did damage to the inverter and other electrical items.

Our rig was damaged once when lightning struck the main CATV box at the RV park entrance. The surge traveled through the grounding system in to the electrical system. It fried our surge guard, power cord, inverter and ATS and did minor damage to a TV and a few other items inside.
We've had lightning damage in a stick house too.

I don't see your risk being significantly any higher in an RV than in a stick house ...I would not go wandering around outside during a lightning storm either way.
 
kwbush said:
Why would there be a greater expectation of lighting there? Don't mind me  just wondering out loud and showing my ignorance...
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Actually I was wrong, they are no longer calling us the most lightning prone capitol of the world, only the United States. It is because of the severe number of electrical storms we get each year. The close proximity of moisture from both the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean makes the Sunshine State a breeding ground for thunderstorms. Here is a link to a thunderstorm map. Florida has nine of the top 20 cities and all of the top five cities.

https://weather.com/science/weather-explainers/news/cities-most-prone-to-lightning

 
In any case, vehicles are one of the safer places to be in any electrical arc situation, lightning or otherwise. We can all theorize as much as we like about what may or may not happen in a direct hit with a zillion volts, but most agree its not something to lose sleep about. You could get hit in your home or your car too, but the chances are really slim. Not zero, of course, but really slim. And few hits are ever fatal, but again that is "few" and not "none". My wife's father was actually struck by a bolt while outdoors and had his skin singed, but he recovered a few minutes later and walked home.
 
afchap said:
A rig was struck by lightning at 2008 GNR I think it was. He had a Firestick CB antenna mounted on the side near the driver position. That was where the strike apparently hit. It splintered the fiberglass antenna, started a small fire under the dash, and did damage to the inverter and other electrical items. ...
Click to expand...
Wasn't that the guy that represented Workhorse on iRV2? I was trying to help him troubleshoot his electrical problems. I think his transfer switch got fried? Maybe a different guy in a different galaxy? Anyway like Gary says you are in a relatively safe place but you might get your electrical stuff fried.

We had a static discharge setup on our sailboat and we could smell the ozone more than once. The idea being to discharge any built up charge before it becomes a conduit for a strike. At one marina we were in, there was a smallish cabin cruiser between two sailboats (we were one of those) and he got a lightning strike and not us.  Go figure.
 
As I said 5 years ago on the other thread, the way to keep from getting killed is for your body to rise and fall EXACTLY at the same rate as the vehicle you are in. Even if it's 5 million volts, your body doesn't know that as long as it happens all together. The faraday cage mentioned above is how you want the coach to function.
One learns allot from building TV transmitters with 2000' towers in the middle of Texas. Even when we were out at the building during a lightening storm none of us had a clue we were being (cept for the thunder crack) hit because the tower, raceway to the building, the building itself, racks, everything were bonded with 6-8" copper strap internally, as well as a duplicate wrapped around the building and buried.
 
One rule I learned about Lighting -
1 - it doesn't follow any rules

You can google, but the tires as insulators is kind of a myth.  Tires aren't pure rubber, and they contain a lot of carbon for durability.  Carbon is an excellent conductor of electricity which is what they use in high energy spark plug wires to allow them to be flexible. 
 
After living on a sailboat for many years, and the mast CAN be the highest thing for miles, I learned one thing.  Lightning does whatever it wants.  You would think it would follow predictable rules, but often not.  I would not hesitate to stay in an RV during a thunderstorm. 
And, I think Tampa and south toward Ft Meyers is the hub of lightning.  My understanding is that Tampa means lightning in the local indian dialect, though that may be urban myth. 
 
I was a teenager and out in dad's boat just offshore.... a 23 ft Penn Yan flying bridge if interested....
It was a top heavy sucker....

anyway, we got caught in a storm once, raining so hard visibilty went to almost nothing.... so we sheltered in the cabin with dad at the lower helm and were idling along till it slacked off so we could dash for the inlet
FLASHBANG
and everything went dead.....
No fire, no nothing.... except I felt a tingle.  Like licking a 9-volt battery with my whole body.  I was standing at the cabin door with rain splash hitting my legs, splashing up from the deck.
so since there wasn't a big hole anywhere we figured that the lightning must have hit near the boat and somehow got into the electrical.

We tossed out the anchor and started fishing again after the rain passed.... till someone came by to give us a tow.
It wasn't till we were pulled up to the dock, that someone at the marina pointed out the black stub that was once a CB radio antenna.

Turns out the lightning hit the antenna and got into the electrical system.  everything that was switched on was melted.  Everything that was off was just fine.
electronic ignition module was a puddle of goo
the windshield wiper in use was shot, the one that was switched off was fine.... and so on...

Since i felt a good tingle, I always say that I was hit by lightning once....
 
Back in the early 1990's, I attended a lecture by a guy that rode in the backseat of this jet that was flown into storms studying strikes on aircraft.  It was very interesting.....
http://www.f-106deltadart.com/nasa_lightning_research.htm
I learned a lot about what lightning does and how it travels through vehicles.  I had some interesting photos.  One showed the leading edge of an aircraft that had imploded... completely collapsed inverted.  the bolt entered a wing tip nav light and traveled down the small gauge wire that powered it, all the way across to the other wing tip's light where it exited.
 
I was a teenager and out in dad's boat just offshore.... a 23 ft Penn Yan flying bridge if interested....
It was a top heavy sucker....

anyway, we got caught in a storm once, raining so hard visibilty went to almost nothing.... so we sheltered in the cabin with dad at the lower helm and were idling along till it slacked off so we could dash for the inlet
FLASHBANG
and everything went dead.....
No fire, no nothing.... except I felt a tingle.  Like licking a 9-volt battery with my whole body.  I was standing at the cabin door with rain splash hitting my legs, splashing up from the deck.
so since there wasn't a big hole anywhere we figured that the lightning must have hit near the boat and somehow got into the electrical.

We tossed out the anchor and started fishing again after the rain passed.... till someone came by to give us a tow.
It wasn't till we were pulled up to the dock, that someone at the marina pointed out the black stub that was once a CB radio antenna.

Turns out the lightning hit the antenna and got into the electrical system.  everything that was switched on was melted.  Everything that was off was just fine.
electronic ignition module was a puddle of goo
the windshield wiper in use was shot, the one that was switched off was fine.... and so on...

Since i felt a good tingle, I always say that I was hit by lightning once....
Click to expand...

Sounds like something to do with the Bermuda Triangle to me :D
 
I remember when we had hardwire telephones and we had a lady here in Denver get hit through the phone while using it.  Just when you thought you were safe!
 
My Mother-in-Law got thrown across the kitchen when on an old landline phone many years ago. Blessedly, she didn't have any injuries.
 
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