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Lightning strike aftermath

aggie113

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 22, 2015
Messages
477
Location
San Antonio, TX
My lot was originally three so I have a transformer that comes off the street just for my power drop. That transformer was hit or otherwise exploded during the storms Weds night. Power company got me back up Thursday evening. The pole for the transformer is between the garage and the house. The ethernet cable between the two was a very happy medium for power spikes into nearly all my networking equipment. My main POE switch and all secondary switches in the house got fried. The Ubiquiti POE switch in the garage somehow only fried the port where that cable connected but still managed to also fry the security camera and wireless AP connected to it. The house security cameras are likewise toast, as is the cable modem, router and the networking port for my gaming laptop (wireless still works). Thank god my 12 disc Synology's network ports still work!
May have lost some other devices, won't know for sure until the switches are replaced. Non-myfuckup related, something also got damaged at the well, hopefully not the pump, but without water still until the repair man arrives later today.

I've already ordered 50m of fiber and SPF modules to go into the compatible replacement switches. I was able to limp back online as I'd held onto my older cable modem and very old wireless router which I'm sure has already been exploited as they stopped making firmware updates for it five years ago :)
 
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dcg9381

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 20, 2018
Messages
11,887
Location
Austin, TX
I had the same thing happen. Lightening strike across the street basically lit up most of the cat5 cables in my home. Most damage was isolated to equipment and physical cable damage was at the RJ45 terminations - some were scorched.
 
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aggie113

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 22, 2015
Messages
477
Location
San Antonio, TX
Insurance probably won't be a help. I'm yet to hear back from them, but if it's under my general homeowners policy the deductible is unlikely to be met.
 
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wyliesdiesels

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 14, 2012
Messages
20,071
Location
Modesto, CA
you didnt have surge suppressors on the line between the buildings?

how about a surge suppressor on the coax before it enters your house? Ive got one on my line
 
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aggie113

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 22, 2015
Messages
477
Location
San Antonio, TX
Coax was going through a basic protector. Nothing for the ethernet cable. It was inside conduit but that was still on the ground (fence area is still not finished).
 

CoogarXR

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 11, 2016
Messages
6,867
Location
Ohio
About 20 years ago when I was IT director for a medium-sized company, we had just upgraded to cable internet when it got struck with lightning. It jumped through the cable, blew the modem, router, then jumped to a serial concentrator (remember those?) and blew 16 expensive high-speed form-feed printers. That was a terribly expensive strike.

Luckily those printers had replaceable serial interface boards, and they were fine otherwise. But still, the downtime, 16 boards and overnight shipping...
 
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