Who's getting rain today?

I see Gabrielle has made land fall on the NC coast, so who's getting much needed rain? How far inland do you think it'll make it?

i couldnt even tell anyone on the east coast was getting any rain... beautiful day... great for jetskiing in the calibogue (kal-uh-boe-gee) sound and may river today! many people seemed to have the same ideas as we did, cuz it was crowded @ the sandbar!

No rain here on the coast!! At least the humidity is down. I however can not complain nor will I fuss about all the work my garden becomes this time of year. Here is why!!!
Three weeks ago after a full day in the yard weeding, watering , prunning, etc., we had a terrible lightning storm. The next morning hubbie and I go out to find a 4' diameter by 1' deep area, that was a rose bed, completely gone. All the plants were fried, concrete walkway cracked, Large river rocks (30 lbs) blown into the yard. What was so scary is that this happened only 6 ft. from the house.
Now, if you were me, would you think twice about complaining about anything?
B

Wowowow, that was close!!! You didn't hear it when it happened? And, no, I don't think I'd be complaining. ;)

I guess Gabrielle fizzled out pretty quickly and didn't deliver the rain she was promising, based on the news.

Oh yes we definately heard it. It was 2:30 am and the lightning lasted for about 30 minutes. We assumed that it had struck a maple tree that was near by. Hubbie checked outside to be sure nothing was on fire. This was the back yard. We also had a strike in the front. Hit the pole that carries the electrical lines and cable line. It only traveled down the cable line into our house. That fried 3 televisions, 2 phones, and one computer. Same thing at my neighbors house. Never lost electricity.
Asked cable guy how to prevent this from happening again. Answer: disconnect everything that is connected to a cable line when you hear or see lightning. Do What !!
What about this expensive power serge protector I have on my computer? "Mam, That is only for your electrical line."
Live and learn--------

Wow what bad luck! .All the expense of replacing the electronics.The real heart breaker is the garden.I feel your pain.After working so hard this past summer and having it all literally go up in smoke.

We also had lightning very close by in that storm.We were lucky and the lightning hit a live oak in the next door lot which is empty.

We didn't get one drop from this weekend's storm.Sunday and today were a bust.Rain promised and none came.Who do I complain to?

LOL Try the weather channel. ;)

Wow, BSD, that must've been scary. I didn't realize that lightning could really travel thru the cable lines - thought it was just propaganda all this time.

SCNewbie,
I had never heard of this either. This is why I wanted to post this. It made a believer out of me. I am wondering if there is anyone out there who might have a solution to prevent this from happening again. I did find out that the cable company (Horry Telephone Co.) does block TV reception if a severe storm is brewing. However, if lightning hits the cable line and then travels into the house, everything that is connected to that cable is fried.
What do you do???

BSD, glad you are OK, that is the important thing. We found out years ago while living in Columbia, that it can come in both ways. We had it knock out TV from the cable AND from the electric lines. We lost countless TVs and neither SCE &G nor any number of electricians could figure out what was going on. We had every known surge protection device installed and we still were losing TVs. Finally a kid, one of those electronic wizards, told us to check our grounding rod. (There is a wire running from your meter box into the ground where it connects to a grounding rod.) Sure enough, corrosion had built up between the wire and the rod. We scoured the corrosion off and re-connected it, then to be on the safe side we installed a second grounding rod. Funny but we never lost another TV and Circuit City was very sad to lose such a good customer.

Ohhhh - very good to know! Don't ya just love "geeks"? So smart & so willing to help & share their knowledge. Whenever young kids call someone a geek around me, I tell them Bill Gates was a "geek" - always makes them pause for a sec.

So, does this grounding rod take the place of the lightning rod that used to be on houses?

And what do we do to keep it from coming in via the cable?

Can't say if there was any connection but we never had trouble with the cable after the house was properly grounded.

Thanks Ardesia for that good information. I hope that this has made others aware of the problem,
The cable company did change a connection from the meter box to the grounding rod. I am going to check and be sure it was done as you described. There will be a lot of "tall, dark, and handsome guys" working for the so called "Geeks"one day. Actually, my 15 yr old Grandson fixed my computer for about $50. He knew exactly what was wrong, removed the back on the modem, pulled something out and stuck something back in. It Worked!!!
Thanks again for all the good information, Ardesia.

SCNewbie, If I were you I would do as Ardesia said and check with your cable company. They should check this at no charge.

Hey, SCNewbie, I live in Anderson too. (:

Smokey