May, 2000

Spring storms have reminded us that lightning is a risk we need to manage. On May 11, 2000, CBS The Early Show had a segment on lightning and their web site had good tips from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):

• Stay indoors, and don't venture outside, unless absolutely necessary.
• Stay away from open doors and windows, fireplaces, radiators, stoves, metal pipes, sinks and electrical appliances.
• Don't use electrical equipment like hair driers or cord type electric razors.
• Don't use telephones during the storm.
• Don't take laundry off a clothesline.
• Don't work on fences, telephone or power lines, pipelines or structural steel fabrication.
• Don't use metal objects like baseball bats, fishing rods and golf clubs. Golfers and baseball players wearing cleated shoes are particularly good lightning rods.
• Don't handle flammable materials in open containers.
• Stop tractor work, especially when the tractor is pulling metal equipment and dismount. Tractors and other implements in metallic contact with the ground are often struck by lightning.
• Get out of the water and off small boats.
• Seek shelter in buildings. If no buildings are available, your best protection is a cave, ditch, canyon or under head-high clumps of trees in open forest glades.
• When there is no shelter, avoid the highest object in the area. If only isolated trees are nearby, your best protection is to crouch in the open, keeping twice as far away from isolated trees as the trees are high.
• Avoid hilltops, open spaces, wire fences, metal clotheslines, exposed sheds, and any electrically conductive elevated objects.
• When you feel the electrical charge — if your hair stands on end or your skin tingles — lightning may be about to strike you. Crouch on the ground immediately. Do not lie flat.