Fuel for Thought

In A Flash

Expediting is generally about emergency freight. Things happen quickly. One minute you may be waiting for a load, the next minute, you may have more loads offered than you can handle at one time. Just like life, circumstances can change in a flash. Literally.

A flash of lightning can be a sight to behold. It can also be very disruptive.

Luckily, I was home when the lightning started to strike on this particular evening. Several strikes and a few inches of rain later, the storm moved on. The aftermath was startling. We have had lightning strikes here before, but generally it would just hit trees or fence posts. One year it actually struck our gas line where it entered the house. That was interesting, trying to put out a fire with five different fire extinguishers before realizing it was a gas line burning.

This time the lightning was more intense and with the repeated strikes, the damage was more extensive. Burned electrical wires in the walls, exterior wall blown outward and interior sheetrock and insulation blown inward. Trees struck and split. Fence posts struck and split.  Gate hardware flash welded to the gates. Exterior lighting zapped. Interior lighting fried. A couple of TVs zapped. Satellite dish and wires cooked. Electric farm fence burned and severed. Cordless tool batteries and chargers destroyed. The good news is that no one was injured and it did not cause a fire this time.

When lightning strikes, it happens quickly. The electrical current from the strike is trying to find the ground and will take any path it can to find the earth. And very quickly it will overload circuitry, wires and electronic devices in its path.

I don't know if the power of lightning can take you back in time (with a flux capacitor), but it sure can slow down time as you try to wrap your mind around what all it has affected in such a short period of time, but then time really slows down as you try to find qualified people to repair the damage and deal with insurance companies at the same time.

As difficult as owning and operating an expedite truck can be at times, I will take that stress any day over dealing with lightning strikes at my house.

A few weeks later and things are beginning to get back to normal, now it is time for some research on lightning rods and lightning protection systems.

 

See you down the road,

Greg