I live in the lightning capital of the U.S... Central Florida. I have had lightning damage before, but never like this. Let me give some background and details. Maybe someone can tell me what happened.

I have two power runs that cover some distance. One goes from the house to a metal building 250' away. Another run goes to the front gate 800' away.

At the front gate I have an intercom that shares the phone line from the house with a surge arrestor bypass swith located at the house. I have a B/W video camera with RG-6 at the front gate.

In the house I have structured wiring, and all the phone, data, and video comes into one box. I use 66 blocks for the telephone, and 110 blocks for the data.

In the main panel, I have a surge arrestor for the power line that shunts after 175V surge. Little green light indicates if it has blown or not.

On Wednesday, lightning struck within a mile of the house, but did not hit the house. It knocked the power off for about an hour. When the power returned I had the following damage:

Computer modem inoperative, senses no dial tone when tone exists. It is on UPS with phone surge protection.

Network card on another computer dead.

Front gate intercom doesn't ring house but can forward a call. (I suspect surge from phone line since modem and this device now have problems)

Camera not working but has power. (Power surge?)

My neighbor across the street had his alarm system wiped out, and his thermostat. (Power and phone surge?)

Other neighbor lost one of two cameras located in the barn and his 200amp main breaker to his house tripped.(Power surge?)


This Sunday, no storms and our phone lines go dead (I suspect the damage finally caught up to the main phone system). All of us on the street lost our phones. My gate opener and intercom stop working. I find the 18V AC transformer and the 16V AC transformer are both dead! I put an ohm meter on the power input legs and find them open on both transformers.

So, what happened? Did I get a power surge or telephone surge? If it was from the power line, why didn't that stupid 175V surge arrestor work?

This is aggravating!

Thanks,

Joe