I'm glad you are all OK. You saw what is known as Ball Lightning. Did
you guys have an urge to listen to Jerry Lee Lewis' Great Balls of Fire
when that happened? Here is an excerpt from a quick Google I did on
Ball Lightning:
BALL LIGHTNING does not look like "lightning." Instead, it usually
appears as a mysterious glowing sphere which drifts horizontally through
the air. It is typically the size of a grapefruit, but sometimes appears
as small as a pea, or as large as a bus. It sometime hovers at a few
feet or tens of feet altitude, but can also bounce along the ground. It
usually lasts only a few seconds, but sometimes persists much longer.
Various colors of "BL" have been seen, sometimes it changes colors, and
sometimes it has internal structures such as glowing layers or moving
sparks. Sometimes it disappears silently, other times it explodes with
extreme violence.
At one time BL was thought to be extremely rare, but this was because
most BL eyewitnesses feared ridicule and wouldn't come forward. In
reality, five percent of the population has seen BL close up. Today most
researchers agree that it is real, yet its nature is still highly
controversial, and no sensible theories yet exist to explain it. (For
example, BL cannot be hot plasma, since plasma would be much lighter
than air and would immediately rise like fire, or like a balloon.) See
Scientific American's Ask the Experts
<http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_topic.cfm?page=1&topicid=13> under BALL
LIGHTNING
<http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=000CC3F9-66E4-1C71-9EB7809EC588F2D7&catID=3>,
also SAINT ELMO'S FIRE
<http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=000CB330-61BF-1C71-9EB7809EC588F2D7&catID=3&topicID=13>
Mac Dearman wrote:
Hey folks,
We suffered a direct lightening strike on our NOC tower Friday
evening that knocked our entire network down for 15 hours. It fried
everything on our main tower leaving nothing but a pile of charred
chunks. It also got our 2 managed switches, Sharons workstation, my
workstation and a switch in the house as well as our VoIP phones in
the house. We re-rigged the tower and had everyone in N Louisiana back
up by Saturday at 3:00pm, but I am running on two POS switches in the
NOC and desperately need a good managed switch like a Cisco 3500
series. If any of you have one you would be willing to part with -
-shoot me your best offer - - - - or if you know where I can find a
good refurbed unit at a nice price would be good as well.
The switch in the house was on my desk and when that bolt of
lightening hit a ball of fire rolled out of the switch with a loud POP
and went across the room. Sharon let a scream and I let out something
that was not as loud as a scream, but smelled much worse!!! It was
really weird as the fire went across the room before the boom from the
lightening. I am thankful we had enough extra Trango and Tranzeo gear
to get us back up after such a lethal hit. It could have been worse -
- it could have taken out my servers. I will tell you all that if you
dont have ethernet surge protection in place - - - you better get it
as I would be SOL had it traveled any deeper into my NOC!
Thanks,
Mac Dearman
Maximum Access, LLC
Authorized Barracuda Reseller
MikroTik RouterOS Certified
www.inetsouth.com
www.mac-tel.us (VoIP Sales)
www.RadioResponse.org (Katrina Relief)
318.728.8600 318.728.9600
318.303.4227
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