I have a few tales of what lightning strikes can do to telephone lines and telephony systems. The witnessing of lightning strikes is mainly from the customer’s point of view, while the resultant damage is from my perspective (the repairman).
I have witnessed lightning striking a gum tree, turning one large branch instantly into flames and then exploding. This event awoke a sense of awe and curiosity that drove me to find out more about lightning and meteorology in general. I’ve learnt that there are two forms of lightning – the common lightning bolt and the rare ‘super bolt’ which is believed to be at least 100 times more powerful than a normal lightning bolt.
My first work encounter with a ‘super bolt’ was being called out to see if I could get an elderly customer’s line working after the house was struck by lightning. Upon arrival, the customer showed me a black hole in her wall where the phone used to be. All that was left of the phone was a smoking mess of plastic on the kitchen floor. The customer proceeded to tell me that she had just walked into the kitchen when the sink, stove and fridge all ‘came alive’ with a weird blue flame that then ‘jumped’ across the kitchen into the phone which exploded. There was an almighty roar outside and the whole house shook.
Okay, the phone was a black blob on the kitchen floor, so where was the telephone cable from the street? I went outside and looked under the house. At the back corner, there was a smoking hole in the ground where 30 minutes ago, there were water and gas pipes. I couldn’t find the telephone cable. The seriousness of the situation dawned on me; we must have a gas leak somewhere under the house!
I managed to get the customer outside and make two calls for help – one to the fire brigade and the other to the gas department. Upon inspection they both said I wasn’t needed as the customer could not live in a house with no water or gas.
My second encounter made me realize how powerful these bolts could be. I answered a call for help from one of my colleagues who did not know why a school’s ‘small business telephone system’ refused to work after a nearby lightning strike. My progress up the school driveway was blocked by a half buried block of sandstone. Looking around, I noticed that most of the school’s bell tower was now adorning the assembly ground, which looked like a graveyard.
I located the school’s building manager and asked him what happened?
He had walked outside to watch the show of lightning over the city when a huge lightning bolt descended from the storm and branched into two. One bolt hit the bell tower which exploded, sending large blocks of sandstone into the assembly area. The other bolt hit the ground outside the main school building, producing two blue fireballs which bounced along the ground.
One fireball disappeared with a bang while the other one took a sharp left turn and bounced through a glass window of the main office and exploded in a blue flash. Scientific speculation and experiments support the theory that the fireballs are pure plasma (hence, they can move through seemingly solid objects) from the lightning interacting with the soil.
Of course, the box housing the telephone circuitry was also in the main office and there I found my friend trying to figure out what had gone so horribly wrong. He had replaced everything that could be replaced and still no joy.
‘Okay my dear Doctor Watson; let us look at everything that can’t be easily replaced’ I said in my best Sherlock Holmes accent.
The circuit boards plug into long connectors (one for each board) which are mounted on the system frames. At the back of these connectors is wiring which links all the circuit boards and power supply together. When we looked at the back of the connectors, the problem was quite obvious; there was no wiring, just a puddle of copper on the floor of the frame. Even with a new telephone system, nothing would work until the telephony and electrical cables had been replaced.
As a postscript, I went back to that school several times and was always surrounded by kids begging me to tell them about the big storm, the bell tower and those scary lightning balls. The building manager told me that the kids spent a lot more time outside where the teachers would conduct ‘open air classes’. They also got to go home early if there was an afternoon storm approaching their area. Apparently, all these changes were attributed to my friend and me which gained us ‘local legend’ status. I never got a chance to tell them that it was one of Mother Nature’s miracles and she was already a legend.
