PreTeena by Allison Barrows for October 28, 2018

All good things to do to keep your machines from being burnt out. And protecting yourself from the bolts.

My Grannie did that but she went to her storm shelter. Spent the night down there if necessary.

Teena’s working on a nice shape there. Stick? Well….

I’ve seen the effects of a nearby lightning strike on the old 300ohm flat tv antenna wire. It could totally vaporize the copper and yet not melt the plastic insulation in between! Some of Teena’s prep could be tweeked, but is too long to cover here. It is serious tho.

ever see the inside of a 2 way radio hit by lightning.. I have. many times. Fried, Crisp.

Good advice. If a kitchen table can protect you from a nuclear explosion, it can withstand thunderbolt and lightning.

Lightning struck a two foot diameter maple tree about 150 yards from our front porch. Seeing the flash and hearing the detonation simultaneously is both bright and LOUD. It turned the tree into a huge paint brush.

it’s kinda like the comic says, see

cdcDOTgov/disasters/lightning/safetytips.html

I love t-storms. So does my husband. We taught our girls to be cautious but unafraid of storms (we’d sit out on our covered porch with them during storms when they were very young). When our older daughter was about 3 she was in daycare. The teacher was deathly afraid of t-storms, so whenever one happened, she would sit with my daughter, because my girl’s calm helped calm the teacher down…which trickled down to the other students.

My aunt used to insist on all of these preparations, but everyone in the house had to get in a bed to wait out the storm. Not sure what she thought that would do – especially since my cousin’s bed was against a window.

I came home on a warm summer day and realized the air conditioner wasn’t cooling. I checked on the outside unit and discovered a 6 inch hole in the steel cover that looked like it was cut by a welding torch. The unit was fried!

When thunder roars, go indoors!

Years back, when I lived in Canton, Ohio, I had a friend who’s wife (Helen) was terrified of storms. Every time a storm came she would run into the bedroom and hide under the covers. After about three years of working with her he finally got her to be able to tolerate being in the living room during a storm. After about two storms they were sitting on the couch when a lightening bolt struck the house and exploded the TV set.Guess who went straight back to the under-the-covers and was not to ever be coaxed out again. True story.

Good advice… but you really don’t need to worry about hanging up a cordless phone. Yes, lightning can travel along phone lines, but it’s only a danger for a wired phone. If you do need to call someone (like 911), you’re safer already having the cordless handset in your hand, rather than needing to grab it from the base unit, where the risk of shock is present.

Stick looks like a gum wrapper in the last panel.