Extension offers lightning advice

Lightning Safety Awareness Week is June 20-26

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Lightning is responsible for more deaths and property loss nationwide than tornadoes, hurricanes and floods combined, notes a University of Missouri Extension specialist.
“Lightning kills about 400 people, injures about 1,000 and causes a quarter-billion dollars worth of property destruction each year,” said Robert Schultheis, MU Extension natural resources engineering specialist.

“In Missouri we can usually expect lightning to occur an average of one in every six days,” he said.

Damage often extends to homes and electronics. “You can have a lot of different types of damage, from direct hits that could start fires to power surges that are so great that they will run through wiring and blow out all your electronic equipment,” Schultheis said. “I’ve known people who have had lightning melt the nails that hold down siding on their homes.”

One way to mitigate the danger is to install what is commonly known as a lightning rod. Lightning protection systems, consisting of air terminals on the top of a structure and copper or aluminum cables running to grounding rods, can save a home from costly repairs.

Although a lightning protection system may seem like a simple thing to install, Schultheis advises homeowners to consult professionals.

“Generally, this involves a qualified installer to come look at each farmstead or home that needs protection,” he said. “The surroundings – what kind of trees or other structures are nearby – play into how the system will have to be designed to provide proper protection.”

Trees often can take the brunt of a lightning strike due to their height and conductivity. Not only does this lead to tree damage and death, it also is a danger to people and livestock.

“Oftentimes just a small strip of bark peels off, but lightning travels down the trunk and into the roots, where it vaporizes the water and kills them,” said Chris Starbuck, an MU Extension horticulturist. “It’s not a good idea to stand under trees in lightning storms because lightning conducted down into the roots travels away from the tree and can electrocute someone standing nearby.”

Read more about lightning at http://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=G1020. A list of certified lightning protection system installers is available at www.lightning.org.