Yesterday, around 11am the house was struck by lightning.The crack of thunder was one of the loudest things I have ever heard and it scared the bejeesuz out of me.
I was standing in the kitchen at the time and after rushing through rooms to ensure that computers and studio equipment were unplugged I collapsed into a chair because I was shaking so much. I am normally not an easily panicked person, in fact I love thunderstorms and watching lightning flashes but this was way, way too close for comfort.
The outcome of this strike is one fried telephone line (the ADSL still works though!), one fried printer and a huge mobile phone bill as I try and get on to Optus to report it.
In the old days of Telecom I would ring up faults, report the problem and hopefully it would be repaired within the week.
Today I spent 15 frustrating minutes talking (swearing) at the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) robot which finally puts me through to a call centre operator in Kazakhstan who listens to my problem then says "I will connect you to faults" and sends me to the number I dialed in the first place!
3 comments:
Woo! Scarey stuff. Lucky there wasn't more damage.
I think lightening storms are beautiful and I have great respect for the damage they can cause. We do not often get very severe ones here but we have to watch for the forest fires that they cause. I am glad that you are okay and that your knitting needles were not damaged :-)
I have my fingers crossed that they're able to fix the damage to the line quickly for you. :)
When a stray lightning bolt (the main storm was long past, and I'd just turned my PC and modem back on) struck my line a few years back, it took out my modem and the port into my PC -- fortunately it stopped there. The damage to the line was more subtle, and it took many months and a large number of service call before all the damaged line was eventually replaced.
I now run my PC and modem through a power board with both telephone line and power surge protectors, which I'm hoping will help prevent future damage like this.
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