Granite Bay, California – A California man can pretty much write off his Ford 150 pick-up truck. Monday night during a storm, a lightning bolt pierced Mike Knapp’s pick-up, slicing through the windshield and hood, frying the headlight and melting the tires. The truck was sitting in Knapp’s driveway at the time. No one was hurt.
I live in the Tampa Bay Area, the lightning strike capital of the world, and I’ve never seen lightning damage like this on a vehicle.
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God said! buy a Tundra!
Does his insurance agent believe him? What are the odds?
WARNING, NEVEr GROUND your vehicle…
there had to be a piece of metal touching the ground…A wire, something…Otherwise it wouldnt have been HIT so hard.
You’re supposed to be safe inside your car during a lightning storm, now you know how bad has the quality of the Ford products is now.
THAT or there was ALOT of rain, to ground the truck…
So much for the Faraday cage theory of vehicle protection. Maybe too much plastics in the thing.
#4, if lightning can overcome the insulating effect of thousand of feet of atmosphere it can certainly arc the 2 feet from the truck to the ground. In other words, in a thunderstorm *everything* is grounded.
It still looks better than most of the Ford pickups ’round ‘chere in Knothole, Georgia.
I would have loved to see what was left of the engine block.
#2 – I didn’t say that the strike hit in Florida. I was merely saying with all of the lightning strikes in my area, nothing like that has ever happened. You need to comprehend what you read.
The worst part for him is that if he admitted that it was a lightening strike, chances are his insurance won’t cover it. Usually, acts of God are excluded.
Bummer, dude.
Heh, god doesn’t like fords….
8,
I know Airplanes get hit, but its due to water on the wings, making the plane invisable to the Lightning.. If you could create a Static ring around the plane with NO water touching it,, it probably wouldnt get hit..
The Vehicle had to have a FULL contact to the ground for a GOOD Bolt to go THRU the hood and not just conduct AROUND the shell. the bolt had to light up a WHOLE 1 mile area, and last at LEAST a full second to do that much damage.
the engine is Isolated except for 1 line, and that is a fuse link.
A heavy wire had to be touching ground or ALOT of water was pouring OFF the vehicle…THEn it would STILL follow the water to ground…NOT the aluminum, or cast metals UNDEr the truck.
I thought lightening travels from the ground up? It looks like the car was hit from above.
#14: There are other things to consider: It had close contact to the ground via steel belted radial tires which do not provide safe shielding from high voltages. The article does not mention what he was parked near, but it did mention the headlight was fried. Lightening can occur without rain. Older vehicles can make ground to the engine through worn motor mounts as well as the ground straps. There are more than one ground strap — there should be at least another one to the firewall, located (ironically?) below the hole in the hood. Lightening is extremely fast and can deliver damage before many fuse links blow. This is why a lot of surge suppressors are useless against lightening strikes (most lightening damage comes through the modem anyway).
Otherwise, your information is pretty much correct, minus these exceptions.
#15, when you see the lightning, it is the return bolt from the overcharged Earth. It takes a large charge to make it to the ground, which causes the ground to have too much of the opposite charge. The return bolts follow the original path back to the cloud before it fills back in, and balances the electrical potential for a while.
Slow motion imagery of jet struck by huge lightening bolt — I’m glad I wasn’t on this one. I’ve been struck once in the air, adios avionics and magnetic compass. At least the alternator still worked.
Click image for larger.
16,
I agree,
but to MELT the aluminum and shatter the windshield from the concussion, it had to be a MAJOR hit.
The only thing I can say is a Loose wire under the car was acting as a Static discharge, and working like an Arc wielder, there SHOULd be a small Hole in the ground under the vehicle if it was HIT this hard. And maybe even an Iron deposit UNDEr his driveway to draw such a Bolt of lightning.
Lightning actually comes up from the ground and meets halfway up in the air with a matching bolt from the sky. He must have had rebar in the driveway concrete or something.
I rember that storm i live in GB
i was outside the lightning hit the highschool
and a house across my street and alot more
i was with my puppy and i got shoced cuz i was outside