A storm trashed our house / boat Tuesday..

[Sport]

The storm that came thru on Tuesday shreaded up my cover pretty bad, saw a water spout and a lightning bolt hit the house and fried about a 1/4 of our electronic components ! This sucks bad ! ! ! So, who has the best price for a new cover for a 2000 26 ZX ? I need it to be purple so it matches. Florida Power has a surge protector that they come out and install and the monthly fee is only $7.00 for the whole house, so needless to say we learned our lesson and will ante up the 7 bucks. We lost 2 TV sets, 2 stereos both the inside and outside systems, the alarm is toast, in house intercom system is fried and 1/2 of the power outlets the house don't work now, plus a few DVD players and some other smaller stuff also. Any help would be great. Thanks in advance ! ! !

Sport

[Morgan's Cloud]

It's either that or the :cussball: hurricanes huh ?

When Fabian struck last year my power went out with a large surge... I was concerned to say the least.. with an adrenalin rush I ran down to my neighbor's garage in 100 mph 'breezes' to get the fire extinguisher from the Donz

Hope you were insured.

Best of luck / Steve

[txtaz]

Wow Sport, Sorry to hear about the bad luck. We get alot of lightning here also so we have UPS's and surge suppresors on everything electronic. Plus we unplug things when it gets bad.
Uhhmmmm, just a concern. If half of your outlets are dead, did you fry the wiring in the house or did the breakers trip? I was a Nuc-Electrician in the Navy for 9 years and have seen some bad things happen when insulation breaks down. I would hate to see your experience go from bad to worse. It might be worth it to hire someone to check for shorts and dialectic breakdown before powering everything up.
Good luck,
Wes

[BUIZILLA]

1/2 of the power outlets the house don't work now, I had the SAME thing happen to my house.....twice. Twice at my shop too... if the breakers aren't tripped, you need to remove the overlay panel from the circuit breaker panel and look for loose, corroded, burnt wires at the breakers itself. My house chimney got hit, and it actually cracked the concrete, and cinder block, and plaster, the outside chimney wall is still cracked to this day... the surge took out EVERYTHING in it's path that was plugged in, the paddle fan over our bed caught fire and dripped burning plastic on the bedspread while we were asleep :eek: :eek: ...

My shop direct hit was the satellite alarm antenna and melted the inbound copper wire at the breaker head, and we had to pull new wires in from the street pole, replace ALL the breakers in the panel, and pull 2 new wires 100' to the back of the building.... the alarm panel literally exploded, on top of one employee, and then caught fire in the wall... fun day

JH

[ChromeGorilla]

TXTAZ...you was a nuke? What boat were you on? I went to power school in 96 got dropped in 97.Became MT. I was on Maryland from 98-02. Now I'm at TRF. Getin out OCT 05. Sorry this was off subject and very sorry to hear of your loss SPORT.

[txtaz]

Hey CG, Wow a fellow sailor...COOOL. Yeah, I graduated Power School in 86 did a staff tour there. Nice to hang out in Orlandlo for 3 years on the Govs dime. Then did Prototype in Idaho Falls and another staff tour.....Good skiing. Then I did a refueling in Bremmerton for CGN-36 The California and took her on a West Pak. After that I got out and started making some money. It was a great experience and wouldn't trade it for the world. My only complaint is: They made me grow up. LOL
TRF??? I know of RTF ( Reactor Training Facility), but I think they are all shut down now. I still stay in touch with some buds in the biz. Have a good end of tour and don't forget the playing cards. I got mine in Hong Kong to hand out for the last 54 days.
Wes

[Donzi Kid]

I don't have the best price for a cover, but sorry about the cover and the electronics :(

Donzi Kid

P.S.
Good luck on finding a cover. :)

[Forrest]

Sorry to hear about the hit. As you know, the Sun Coast is the lightning capital of the US. Many of our Correctional facilities thoughout Florida get hit by lightning more often than you might think. We use the best surge protection that you can buy, fiber-optics between buildings, lightning rods, etc., and you know, from time to time we will still loose almost every piece of equipment in that site's computer room from a direct or near-by strike. Well, what I'm saying is that from my experience, no surge protector will help in the event of direct lighting strike. Lightning rods are your best protection against lightning strikes. In your case, insurance should take of the damaged items.

[txtaz]

Forrest, Sport took the hit. I use UPS's, Un-interuptable power supplies. The AC charges the batteries and the batteries run the equipment. For any lightning strike the battery will supress the volt spike and in a power loss, you can safely shut down the equipment. I use the good ones (APC) and change the batteries every 2 years. You can get then at all electronics supply stores. If you need more info on protecting your equipment, leave me an email and I can give you an estimate and a contact to order equipment.
Wes

[Last Tango]

All that coiled razor wire - awesome conductor - attracts lightning, escapees, and arteries.
:uzi:

[Forrest]

Wes, we own and use literally hundreds of APC and other brand UPSs mostly in the range of 1- to 7-kVA capacity throughout our 53 major institutions, 39 minor institutions, training facilities, and Parole and Probation offices located in almost every city in Florida. We have over 12,000 networked PCs and hundreds of servers. You can imagine what our monthly bill is for all of our frame-relay 256s, 128s, T1s, T3s, etc. Well, to put it this way, the price of a new F2 rigged 38ZR is about the same as our monthly data-circuit bill. Anyway, with computer equipment, the power cord is not the only way a system can take a hit. Building wiring, phone lines, data cable, grounds, razor wire fences (thanks Mark!), etc., will all carry current. In fact, underground wiring is actually more susceptible to lightning strikes than overhead wiring. The State of Florida has lots of experience in dealing with lightning and have a number of lightning protection equipment vendors on contract. From my experience, no matter what you do, you cannot fully protect your equipment from lightning. Sure, UPSs help block big power surges and so do on site step-down transformers, but remember lighting is about 10KV per inch, and some lightning bolts are over a mile long. With that great of a voltage potential, the arc can easily jump across large objects. The key is to keep the lightning from hitting in your immediate area if you can, and that is best performed through the extensive use of lightning rods.

[ToonaFish]

Ah, yes, reason #6934 for not living in Florida.

Just when I was having fond thoughts of the old swamp...

[Dr. Dan]

:banghead: Hey Sport...I purchased my cover from
www.coverquest.com , I am very happy with it...I Tow with it on average of 15,000 to 20,000 miles a Summer to our Regional Donzi Events.

Many people have seen it...and this is it's Third Season... :wink:

They have a variety of Qualities...I went with the Sunbrella .... its awesome and repels Bird and Squirrel Doo Doo :spit:

How do I know this?

Good Luck...

Doc

[rchevelle71]

Sorry to hear you got hit, We have been in South Florida for 2 years, and have been lucky so far, But then again, phone stopped working yesterday, wonder if it could have gotten hit?????? or maybe I should just pay the bill:lookaroun :lookaroun :lookaroun

[Woodsy]

Its not only the lightning strike that will get ya, its the EMP (electromagnetic pulse) of the lightning bolt. The EMP can fry lots of electronics, plugged in or not.....

Woodsy Von Outboard

[Fish boy]

HEy Sport, sorry to hear about the zap and cover. Guess we had a tornado come through on a path the pretty much puts you in the middle. Glad no one was hurt. Did you lose the big plasma?

[Sport]

No, we did not loose the big TV, 2 of the little ones were fried though, thanks for the info on the boat cover guys. Sorry it took me so long to reply to my own post but I have been in Punta gorda playing golf for 4 days now.

Sport